Development of a Smelting Reduction Process for Low-Grade Ferruginous Manganese Ores to Produce Valuable Synthetic Manga
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Development of a Smelting Reduction Process for Low-Grade Ferruginous Manganese Ores to Produce Valuable Synthetic Manganese Ore and Pig Iron Veerendra Singh 1
&
Arijit Biswas 1 & Nilamadhaba Sahu 1
Received: 4 February 2020 / Accepted: 16 July 2020 # Society for Mining, Metallurgy & Exploration Inc. 2020
Abstract Manganese alloys are important raw materials for steelmaking. However, selective mining of high-grade manganese ore resources has resulted in a scarcity of these high-grade Mn ores (Mn: >42; Mn/Fe: >5). The present research work is carried out to explore a new smelting reduction process to produce high-Mn/Fe synthetic Mn ore from low-grade ferruginous manganese ores. Representative samples of low-grade ores (Mn: 25–30%; Mn/Fe: ~1) were collected and smelting reduction studies were carried out using variable smelting power (20–30 kWh), carbon rate (10–20% of ore) and slag basicity (0.1–0.3) to produce high-MnO slag and manganese pig iron. Studies have shown that different-grade high-MnO slags (MnO: 38.57–58.24%; Mn/Fe: >15) and manganese pigs (Mn: 5.16–24%) can be produced at optimum process conditions. The high-MnO slag can be used as synthetic ore for the ferroalloy production process. The developed process is capable to effectively segregate the iron and manganese in the metal and slag, respectively. The optimum Mn and Fe separation (>95%) was achieved by smelting of 10 kg Mn ore batch in a 50-kVA electric arc furnace using 30 kWh smelting power and 0.16 kg of coke. The slag basicity was maintained at 0.3 and the optimum slag SiO2 was ~30%. The studies indicated that the upgrading of low-grade ferruginous manganese ores is a promising solution for achieving high-Mn/Fe-ratio synthetic ores for ferroalloy production. It can help the manganese alloy industry to overcome challenges associated with the scarcity of high-Mn/Fe-ratio Mn ores and efficient utilization of low-grade resources. Keywords Manganese ores . High-MnO slag . Manganese pig . Smelting reduction . Submerged arc furnace
1 Introduction Manganese (Mn) ferroalloys are chiefly consumed in the steelmaking process as a deoxidizing agent or as an alloying element to produce high-quality steels. These alloys are typically produced in a submerged arc furnace using coke, fluxes, and manganese ores of a specific Mn/Fe ratio. Preferred-grade manganese ores should contain Mn > 46% and Mn/Fe >5% to produce commercial-grade high-carbon ferromanganese [1]. The presence of high iron content (Fe: 15–40%) in the manganese ores decreases their Mn/Fe ratio and makes them unsuitable for production of high-Mn ferroalloys. The selective mining of high-grade Mn resources has created a scarcity of these resources, which is emerging as a major challenge for the manganese and steel industry.
* Veerendra Singh [email protected] 1
R&D, Tata Steel, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand 831005, India
Manganese ore deposits were formed by a variety of processes, including syngenetic in-clastic carbonate sequences and volcanic-sedimentary accumulations, and are obscured
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