Effect of recycling blast furnace flue dust as pellets on the sintering performance

The Egyptian Iron and Steel Company generates a great amount of blast furnace flue dust. The recovery of metals and carbon from this flue dust becomes a very important demand due to the increase of the price of coke breeze and the decrease of the primary source of metals. At the same time, it make the environment more safe by decreasing pollution. Introducing these dust fines in the sintering process proves to be very harmful for different operating parameters. Thus, this study aims at investigating the production of pellets resulting from these fines, using molasses as organic binder and its application in sintering of iron ore. The sintering experiments were performed using flue dust as pellets as a substitute of coke breeze. The results revealed that, sintering properties such as inter strength increases with using the flue dust pellets, while productivity of both the sinter machine and sinter machine at blast furnace yard decreases. Also the vertical velocity of the sinter machine and the weight loss during the reduction of produced the sinter by hydrogen decrease.