A(;GI,OMERATION

Agglomeration is used to cornbine the resr-rlting fine parlicles into durable clusters. Agglomerates
rr-ray be

in the lorm of peiiets. sintor. briclueltes. or nodules. The pr-rrpose of agglomerating iron

ore is to improve the permeability of blast furnace f-eed leading to faster gas-solid contact in the

llrnace. Agglomerating the ore prior to being sent to blast furnaces reduces the amount of coke
consumed in the furnace

bf increasing the reduction

rate.

The delelopment

of

these processes

to the extent o1- their adoption in commercial

practice

became possible only dr.rring the Second World War, when a general shortage of ore rnade it

imperative to use all available raw n-raterials. Out of the above processes sintering on grate and

pelletizing are w,idely usecl in prcf-erence to others because of their technical and economic suitabilitl' lor agglomeratiotr of iron ot'e Ilrtes on a large scale.
IlriclLretting essetrtially cortsist of pressing ol'ore 1lnes. witl-r or without a binder. in to a block or briqgette ol sonte suitable size and sl,ape. and then sub.iecting it to a hardenir-rg process. A wide
r.a1ge

ol organic and inorganic binclers likc tar. pitch. cereal products. sodir"rm silicate,
6lp1'11o

f-errous

sr-rlpl-rate. rtragnesiurn

chloricle lintestone" cement. bentonite have been tried with varying sllccess. and after the second war

Altlrorreh hriqr-retting was usccl conrnrercial|..,

it

has practically

beel abanclonecl since 1960. On a sntall scale briqLretting cloes oller son-ie advatllages over other
prt)cesses.

Nodulising is the process ot.consoliclating lure miueral conccntrates into lurnps b5, kneading with

a bipder substance arrcl occasionarll,v by' enrploying heat or chemical reactions. In nodulising
process flr-re dust. pyrite residue or fine ore concentrate along

with sotne carbonaceous material

like tar passecl thror-rgh a rotary kiln heated by gas or oil. The feed travels countercurrent to the
sases. The temperature inside the hrse the ore.

kiln

is

just sufficient to sofien the ore bltt not high enough to

l'he

r-rodLrles

variecl considerably in cornpositior-r and lr,ere too detlse. slaggy and lacked the

reqr,rired porosity and hence this plocess cottld rlot

find great lavor.

Sinterilg is essentially a process of heating of mass of flnes particles to the stage of incipient
fusion fcrr the purpose of agglonielating thern in to lumps. Metal powder compacts ore sintered

to obtain desired solid shapes. In iron ore sintering the aim is to produce a strong but porous
agglomerate from a sar-rdy mass. The process of pelletisation consists of rolJing of moist iron ore flnes of less than 100 mesh size.

with or withor-rt a binder. into balls

excellent l-eed fbr a blast furnace.

o1'

usualll, 7-20 nrnt ir, size. Since tl-re green ball lack

necessary strength these are dried. prel'reated and flred

to produce hardened balls which are an

SINTERING

Sintering involves the heating of fine iron ore u'ith flr.rx and coke fines or coal to produce a semi-

molten mass that solidifies into porous pieces of sinter with the size and strength characteristics
necessary

for feeding into the blast furnace. Moistened tbed is deiivered as a layer onto
air is drarn,n through the moving
erisLii'e liiir,,
becl car-rsing the fuet

continuously moving grate or "strancl."'fhe sr-rrface is isnitecl rvith gas burners at the start of the
strand.
ar-rd

to burn. Strand velocity and

gas

iltri', ai'e.onir.-,,rileC to

"brilir ti-ii'ough" {i.e the p,--.irrt rit',..hich the hLrn',ing tilel layel'

reaches the base of the strand) occurs.iust

priorto the sinter being discharged.

In the sintering process, ores, additives. recycled sinter and coke breeze are blended in a rnixing drum. This mixture is then loaded onto a moving grate. The top layer of this sinter bed is heated to the sintering temperature (1200-1300 0C) by a gas or oil burner. As the mixture proceeds
along with the grate, air is drawn downwards thror-rgh the sintering bed by powerful f'ans causing the combustion front to rnor-e downuarcls thror-Lgh the mixture. The sinter is cooled in a separate coolet, afier which it is crushed. The narrow combustion zone developed initialll, at the top layer travels through the bed raising the ternperature olthe bed. layer by layer. to the sintering level.

The cold blast drawn through the bed cools the already sintered layer and thereby gets itself
heated. The heat contained

in blast is Lrtilized in drying and preheating the lou,ers layer in

the

bed. In advance

of combustion therefbre each layer gets dried and pre -heated by the heat
of the heat in the gases is absorbed by the

transf-erred from the upper combustion zones. Much

lower portion of- the bed.

In the combustion zone , bonding takes place between the grains and a strong and porous
aggregate is fbrmed. The process is over when the combustiorr zone has reached the lowest layer

of the bed, the sinter cake is then tipped fi"orn the great in hot condition or after partial cooling. It

Process r ariables:

During sintering the aggregate of parlicles anywhere in tlre becl are heated and cooled. as a result
bonds are developed at the points of contact of particles with each other.
T'he variables of tl.re sintering are broaclly as lbllorvs:
1. Bed

permeability as decided by the particle size and sheipes ol-the rnix.

2. Thickness of the bed. 3. Total volume of air blast drawn through the bed fbr its sir-rtering.

4. Rate of blast drarvn throLrgh the bed dLrrin_g sinter.in-s.

5. Amount and

qualitl'of solid luel incorporated in the charge.

6. Amount and type of carbonates present in the charge. 7. Amount of moisture in the charge.
8. Nature of ore fines, e.g. its cl-remical composition.

9. Any non-unifbrmity in the bed composition or in the process of sintering.

10. Iruel content for heat inpr_rt.

i. i,:nitiori

intciisii_r.

12. Moisture content of

mix to control its permeability,.

13. Machine speed to obtain complete burn through.

During sintering heat excl.ranges takes place between the solid charge and tl-re air blast draw, through the bed. At any time dr-rring sit-ttering the air blast initially gets heated. that is, it cools the
combustion zone, and

in turn heat

tl-re

lower layers of the bed.

It is therefbre

esse.tially

phenomenon of gas-solid heat exchangr:. The process is carried out at such a f-ast rate that the system is far away from steady state condition of gas-solid exchange. In order to carry both the heating and cooling functions of the gas phase effectively i.e. to obtain fbster rate ol. heat exchange" the heat capacitl,

of the blast clrawn througlr the becl ciuring sintering

of air clrawn

shoulcl be

maximum.

It

means that the volume

thror-rgh the becl dr-rrir-rg sintering shoulcl be

maximum. The more permeable is the bed the more

will be the blast drawn

tl-rrough

it. More

permeable bed however leads to loss of strength in the resLrlting sinter. Tl-rese two f-actors oppose
each other and hence should be adjusted at the optir.num.

it is usual practice to draw air blast o1'7003 lt (25000 Nft3/t) tbr non-volatile

ores and

r-rp

to

1100

m3lt 140000 Nft3 /t) for volatile low grade ores for sintering them ell'ectively. This means that the

is broker-r, screened and cooled to produce desired liaction. The undersize is recycled and the
oversize is fully cooled and sent to tl-re blast furnace.

The process described above is known as clown-dt'ar"rght sintering since the air blast is drawn
through the sinter bed dowrwards. In cor-rtradiction to this some non-t-errous ores are sintered by
up-drar-rght sintering. In the up-drar-rght sintering the

initial sniall layer of the charge on the grate

is ignited befbre making

r-rp

the remaining bed thickness. Iron ores are however sintered bv

down-draught sintering alone.

'fheearliestfromof sinterir-rg.theHuntington-Huberleinpotprocesswasdevelopedinthe 1890's

fbr non-f-errolls ores. A later modiflcation was the Greenwal sintering machine. In the first
clecade

of the present century Dwight and Lloyed in Mexico developed the continuous sintering

process for non-ferrous ores. Soon

it was adopted for iron ore sintering. Today the Dwight-

Llo1,ed sintering rnachine is the only large scale sintering process in use both fbr lerous and
rton-t-errous ores.

.-,

r:l'- l:.

:.,

i'i.;;,: -,:;

i-

_i-*

"

r-l
i-l

.11

'il

--r-*
I
I

L",r:l-

I..-. 1.1 .

r;

,.:r

ri-

1,

l:

Schematic diagram of sinter pot

blast o1'total heat capacity almost equal to that of the solid charge is necessary to transfer the hot

zone through the bed and an equivalent blower size

sintering

will

have

to be provided for effective

The amount of blast drawn per unit weight of the charge usr,rally one tonne is often referred to as

specific volume of the blast in sintering. Heat f'low studies during sintering have shown that the
prodr,rct

of specilic volume and heat capacity of

gaseous phase drawn through the bed is

nonnall1 constant.
Since sir.rtering takes place layer by layer is

it obvious that every layer will

have to be

heated to the sintering temperature level. This is possible only charge and that

if solid fuel incorporated in the

it burns layer by layer. If no fuel is incorporated inthe charge and even if the top

la1'er initially' heated to the sintering temperature level the peak temperature attained by the low'er

ial,ers u,ill go on decreasing and sintering

Sintering is therefore commenced

riill not takes place unifbrmll,and

ellectively.

solid fuel raises the ternperatlrre

bf igniting the solid fuel in the top la,ver. The combr"rstion of ol the top laler to the required level. The air blast draur-r to high

thereafier throtrgh thc- bed not onlv and the conrbustion zone shifts dou.uuards..{ height

sintering temperature

in the

lou,'er lalers can be achier,'ed by'preheating the fuel

temperature. by aci-rier,ing combustion

ruraxir-nur-r-r antoLurt

in a gas stream at high ternpe; ature and by

carbor-r

obtaining

ol carbon to burn to

dioride. The rate of lriel cornbtrstion i.e. the rate

of trar el of f-lame ft'ont depends on the reactir itv of the fuel and ox)'gen content of the gas. The
heat senerated by combtrstion in the upper

lalers must trarel dor.l'n the bed at the same rate as

the cornbustion zone and therebl be available at the right time for raising the temperature of the

lou'er layers. Tl-re heat wave travels down in the bed. u'ith approximately a constant velocitv giren br an expression
:

Hnw

H.(1
Where

F)

Hg is the heat capacity of gas per unit volume.

I-ls is the heat capacity

of solid per unit volume.

W is the normal volume of fluid per r:nit cross section of the bed per minute.
F is the void fiactiorr per unit volume of bed.

The tirne required fbr the w'aste gases to reach peak tenrperature shor-rld therefbre he inversel,v proportional to the product of'apparent gas velocity and heat capacitv o{'the gas phase.
For any fuel type there is certain partial presslrre o{'ox1'uen rvlrich
such that the flame fi'ont travels u'ith tl.re heat

lvill give

a conrbustion rate

tl'ont. I'his is otten rcltrred to as matching and it

gives maximum bed temperature.that is otheruise possible.

Anr other condition is called

misrnatching which gives broad tempcrature distribution not conclr"rctir e to efJ-ective sintering.

For more reactive fuels matcl,ing occurs at low ox.vgen partial presslrres in the gas and 'n ice
versa.

It is a common thermodynamic phenomenon that an increase in partial pressllre of oxygen

gives rise to increase in combustion ternperature as is fbund during ignition and during the
matched conditions of sintering. It may not be so when the conditions are mismatched. i:-l spitc

oi'tlie i::ct tir;it c\csi5 o\\gei.i ls aiiiar5

p-rig5.,',,

in the si:ite:'ing

aii-iiuspl-ic;'.'

:li

the carbon in the fuel does not bum to completior-r (to carbon dioxicle) and some carbon
monoxide is always present in the gas phase. It is related to the poor reactivity of the 1uel and the

fiont ancl the heat fiont. Fuels containing low temperature volatiles are not suitable fbr use in sinter mix, r.rot only because of their high
misrnatching that exists between flames
reactivities, but also because these volatiles distil out of tl-re bed itr advance of the flame front.
and thereby ir-rterf-ere with the gas solid heat exchange.

For effective sintering once the top layer is ignited adequately matching conditions should exist,

the permeability of the bed. as decided by the particle size of the bed. amount of solid firel. moisture and carbonates incorporatecl in the charge and the suctior.r applied
interrelated to obtain the matching conditions.

wiil

have to be

If

sr-rction is increased to draw rnore blast, transf'er o['heat between the gas arrcl solid may become

less efficient. On the other hand

if

suction is less the flarle fiont

will not move down the bed

properly. In either case nrismatcl-ring occurs.

Increase in the average size

of the particles of the sinter mix

increase permeability and the

amount

of air drawn through the bed consequently

increases. This leads

to inefficient

heat

transfer and the attendatlt troubles. There seeps to be no apparer-rt relationship between specilic volume and the solid fuel content of the sinter mix. The specific volume is always dictated by heat transfer considerations rather
than fuel combustion.

With the correct fuel content in the becl. increasing the amount of moisture or carbonates in the bed increases the specific air volume. The effect of water is more predominant. This is thus one of the reasons fbr addition of critical amount of moisture in the sinter mix.

A significant amount of sr-rlphur

ad\ antage

can be removed by sintering and in effect this has the

of reclucing the sulphur load in the blast furnace. It has beetl observed that the
snlpl-u.rr

optipum coke content for

remoral is relativell'much greater at the bottom of the bed. in

order to achiere correct ternperatllre tbr sulphrrr remo\al. The considerations for obtaining suiphur' adequate strength of sir-rter are ditterent tl'om those necessarr tbr reasonable remoral of SINTER QTIALITY
fines' The process of silterins \\as originallr clereloped merelr to agslomerate the iron bearing Once the beneficial eft-ects of sinter as a blast tirmace burden u'ere realized. the ph1'sical properties and cher-nical constitutior-r of sinter come to be exanlined more closell'. The obiect of sintering therefore enlarged
ar-rd

these are now

1.To increase the size of fines to a level acceptable to tl-re blast furnace' 2. To fbrm a strong agglon-rerate with high bulk reducibility' 3. To remove volatiles like COz

fiom carbonates, HzO from hydroxide or sulphur from sulphides

type if ore fines along with their agglomeration.

4. To incorporate flr"rx in the burden.

in the The rnain attention is therefbre focused on to the extent to which flux can be incorporated Incorporation sinter mix without in a1y u,ay. jeopardizing other properties of the resultant sitrter.

of flux in the burden in this way rather than its addition as a separate charge material
it lorms at the correct level in the Blast Furnace.

greatl-v

improves the Blast Furnace performance. since the fbrmation of siag then becornes relatively
easy and

'fhree diff-erent types of' sinters

1. Acid Sinter: Tl're sinter mix does not contain flux at all. F-lux is added in the furnace
separatel.v.

2. Fluxed Sinter: 1'he amount of flux added in the mix in such that the basicitl, of the mix
equal to that

is

of the slag to be produced in the firrnace.

Separate addition

of

t'lr"rx

would be

required only in proportion to the amour.rt of natural lulnpy ore charged in the furnace. This type

of sinter may be produced when cent percent sinter charge is planned.

3. Super-fluxed Sinter: The entire amount of f1ux required to be otherwise charged in

furnace, when run on 100% natural ore charge is added in tl're mix. The basicity of the mix

the

r,r,'oulci

h.unpy ore

or sinter of lower basicity than that of the normal blast firrnace slag. and hence the

narle. this is aimed in most of the modern practices wherein higli percentage of sinter (50S0%)charge in the burden is contemplated.

A small proportion of natural . good graded and

sizecl
i1'

ore charge would also be necessary ancl practically no separate tlr-rx zrddition may be reqr"riled super fluxed sinter is used.

It has been couclusively proved that high basicity sinters are not desirable tbr god Blast firrnace
operation because these sinters leave a refiactory residr.re on the coke sr-rrface therebSr rendering

the slag more viscous. Addition of dunite-magnesia silicate mineral has been fbund at the Tata
Steel to reduce the basicity without

in any way afl-ecting the lurnace perfbrmance

adversely.

Later dunite was replaced by a cheaper mineral called pyroxenite.

MECHANISM OF SINTERING
During sintering on a static bed various zones that are fbrmecl. lJach layer belorv the ignited top
layer undergoes changes in the order : wet ore

drying

calcining

preheating

combustion

cooling. The same order of changes take place on a moving bed.

The chemical composition changes gradually across the various zones. The proportion of ferrous

iron is more in the zone of calcinations arrd combustion but it clecreases on cooling.

fwo types of bond rnay fbn.ned during sintering.

1.

Diffusion or Recrystallization or Solid State Bond : It is formed as a result recrystallization

of tlie parent phase at the point of contact of two particles in solid state and hence the name. 2. Slag or Glass Bond : It is formed as a result of formation of
1or.l,

melting slag or glass at the

point of contact of two particles, depending r-rpon the mineral constitution, flux addition etc. As a result the sinter can have three different types of constituents.
1.

Original mineral which has not undergone an1, chen-rical or physical change during sintering.

2. Original mineral constituents which have undergone changes in their ph1,'sical structure u'ithottt anv chanqe in tl-reir cher-nistrl'. Recrvstallization is the onl1. chanse at some of tire
particle
sr-rrf-aces.

3. Secondarv constitt-lent lbrmed due to dissolution or reaction between tw,o or more of the oiiginal cc,tistituents. e.g. folmaiion of flerrites. spinels. srlicates. eic. these neu' constituents
either rernain as solutiot-t and consolidate as a slag (-elass) or recrrstaliize or-rt of solution.

fhe propottion of

eacl.r

of the phr sical and cherrical chanse during sintering depends

r-rpon the

time tentperatllre crcle of the process. The higher is the temperature more will be the proportion

of ner,r'collstitLlent bl' ."rar of solutions and interactior-r u,hereas lower is the temperature
longer is the dLrration ntore is the process of recrystallization in solid state.

and

The more is the slag bonding. stronger is the sinter br-rt with less reducibility and. more is the
diflLrsion bonding, more is the reducibility bLrt less is the strength. Since ores are fairly impure
slag bond predominates.
as

l'he best practice is to sinter at lower temperature and at such rapicl rate

to form enough slag bonds but not ntuch of recrystallization.

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