Reduction of 1-3 mm iron ore by H2 in a fluidized bed

The reduction of 1–3 mm fine powder of iron ore by H₂ was conducted in a lab-fabricated kg class high temperature fluidized bed. The results show that the differential pressure in the fluidized bed, which has small fluctuation with time, increases with the increase of gas flowing velocity. The utilization ratio of gas decreases when the reaction lasts longer time indicating that the reaction is faster at the beginning of reduction and becomes slower in the latter process. The higher the reaction temperature is, the higher the utilization ratio of gas is, but the difference of utilization ratio among the different temperatures becomes smaller with time. The utilization ratio of gas and the metallization ratio can reach 9% and 84% respectively at 750°C for 20 min, which shows the reduction reaction by H₂ is very fast. The increase of metallization ratio with gas velocity performs quite good linearity, which shows that a higher velocity of reducing gas can be used to improve the productivity of the reactor when H₂ is used as reducing gas. With the increase of charge height, the metallization ratio decreases, but the utilization ratio of gas increases. The reaction temperature can be reduced to 700–750°C from 800–850°C when H₂ is used as reducing gas.