Minimization methods for emissions generated from sinter strands: a review

The agglomeration of iron ores or fine-grained recycled high-grade iron materials is an essential part of the integrated iron and steelmaking process. The 15 European countries produce more than 100 Mt of sinter per year. However, environmental regulation is becoming more stringent, and therefore, sintering plants are under pressure to minimize their generated emissions, because they are the most polluting processes. Different possibilities have been suggested to solve this problem, e.g. using imported pellets or briquettes in blast furnace or to use EAF process. Such changes are very expensive and also delete the recycling route of the by-products, thereby creating an additional treatment or disposal problem. In this paper, different methods for minimizing emissions generated from sinter strands are reviewed.