Effects of CaO on Precipitation Morphology of Metallic Iron in Reduction of Iron Oxides Under CO Atmosphere Original Research Article

Growth process of iron whiskers and mechanism of CaO influence on precipitation morphology of metallic iron at the gas-solid interfaces was studied. Analytical reagents of Fe(NO3)3 and Ca(NO3)2 aqueous solution were used to prepare sheet film sample of Fe2O3-CaO by thermal decomposition at high temperature. In-situ observation was conducted using a stereo optical microscope and a hot-stage. And reduction kinetics of samples was studied by thermo gravimetric (TG) method. Some samples after reduction were analyzed by using the scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive spectrometer (EDS) and fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectrometer. Results indicate that during the reduction of iron oxides with CO, metallic iron is mostly precipitated as whisker and the precipitation behavior mainly depends on reduction rate. Doping CaO can significantly increase the reduction rate and effectively change the precipitation morphology of metallic iron after the reduction. When CaO doping concentration is less than 4% (mass percent), CaO can promote whisker formation of reduced iron; as it reaches 6% (mass percent), CaO inhibits iron whiskers growth; as it is more than 8% (mass percent), no whiskers could be observed. Therefore, controlling the quantity of Ca2+ is effective to control the formation and growth of iron whiskers during gaseous reduction and thus eliminating ore grain sticking caused by intertexture of iron whiskers.