Sticking behavior of iron ore–coal pellets and its inhibition

• The sticking behavior of iron ore-coal pellets at high temperatures.
• The mechanism is the intergrowth of Fe and FeO crystals between pellet boundaries.
• Dolomite powder can effectively prevent sticking and reduce the SI to 9.5 %.

Most previous studies on iron ore–coal pellets (ICPs) have focused on their reduction, but studies on their sticking behavior have not been reported. The sticking behavior of iron ore–coal pellets (ICPs) at high temperatures under a load of 0.1 MPa was studied. Temperature was determined to be an important factor that affects the sticking behavior: the sticking increased with increasing temperature; the sticking index was 89.28% at 1373 K but only 4.78% at 1223 K. The sticking mechanism results from the intergrowth of metallic iron and ferrous oxide crystals between pellet boundaries. High-melting-point materials formed by the combination of MgO and FexOy, can effectively prevent this intergrowth of iron, and the addition of a dolomite powder coating reduces the sticking index from about 90% to about 10%. The addition of limestone and iron ore powder was not found to have any beneficial effect of sticking inhibition.

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