Waste COVID-19 facemasks as an auxiliary iron reductant in the rotary hearth furnace.

Non-recyclable waste disposable facemasks used to reduce transmission of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 have been milled into a form suitable for inclusion into the rotary hearth furnace as a way of reducing iron oxides in steelmaking by-products. Self-reducing briquettes were prepared of powdered Fe2O3, coal and facemask plastic and the stepwise reduction of iron oxide to metallic iron was studied thermogravimetrically and through atmospheric furnace experiments. The reduction efficiency of coal and coal treated with waste facemasks is comparable and the resultssuggest a synergistic effect where the pyrolysis products of plastic decomposition deposit as soot on Fe2O3 particles, supplying additional reductant to higher temperature reduction reactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]