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Thermodynamic Modeling of Metal Reduction from Oxidized High-Iron Nickel Ore Melts

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Abstract

Ferronickel, currently obtained from oxidized nickel ores in various aggregates, contains from 5 to 20% of Ni. According to experiments, rich ferronickel (with a content of Ni of about 70%) can be obtained from the melt of silicate-nickel ore treated with reducing gas. The thermodynamic modeling of metallurgical processes, adapted to open systems, is used to consider the features of reducing the high-iron nickel ore from the Serovskoye deposit with carbon monoxide. The oxide melt composition used for the calculations includes 60.4 wt % of Fe2O3, 1.4 wt % of NiO, 0.14 wt % of СоО, 5.8 wt % of А12O3, 17 wt % of SiO2, 4.2 wt % of MgO, and 11.1 wt % of CaO. The simulation was carried out at a pressure of 0.1 MPa, an amount of carbon monoxide of 10.6 dm3/kg per portion, and temperatures of 1673, 1723, 1773 K. During calculations, dependencies are found that connect the content of nickel (CNiO), iron (\({{C}_{{{\text{F}}{{{\text{e}}}_{2}}{{{\text{O}}}_{3}}}}},\) \({{C}_{{{\text{F}}{{{\text{e}}}_{3}}{{{\text{O}}}_{4}}}}},\) CFeO) and cobalt (ССoО) oxides in the oxide melt and metals in the alloy (СNi, СFe, СCo), as well as their transition degree from the metallic state (φNi, φFe , φCo) to the amount of introduced gas. The component contents in one portion of reduced metal are determined. At temperatures of 1673 to 1773 K and an introduced amount of CO of 190 dm3/kg, the respective content of Fe2O3, Fe3O4, FeO, NiO, and CoO in the oxide melt is 0.17 to 0.12%, 1.77 to 1.05%, 55.6 to 56.5%, 0.026 to 0.037%, and 0.061 to 0.068%. At a nickel reduction degree of 98%, the respective degrees of iron and cobalt reduction are 5 and 56 to 61%. An alloy formed from the reduced metals contains about 30% of Ni, 63 to 65% of Fe and 2% of Co. Thus, it is shown that the selective reduction of nickel and cobalt is possible in certain conditions. The findings from the study are significant to validating the parameters of the production process of ferronickel from oxidized high-iron nickel ores.

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Funding

This work was performed under the State Assignment of the Institute of Metallurgy (UB RAS) within the framework of the Program of Basic Research of State Academies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Metallurgy, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences (UB RAS), 620016, Yekaterinburg, Russia

    A. S. Vusikhis, E. N. Selivanov, S. V. Sergeeva & L. I. Leont’ev

  2. National Institute of Science and Technology “MISIS”, 119049, Moscow, Russia

    L. I. Leont’ev

  3. Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 119991, Moscow, Russia

    L. I. Leont’ev

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  1. A. S. Vusikhis
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  2. E. N. Selivanov
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  3. S. V. Sergeeva
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  4. L. I. Leont’ev
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Correspondence to A. S. Vusikhis.

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Translated by S. Kuznetsov

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Vusikhis, A.S., Selivanov, E.N., Sergeeva, S.V. et al. Thermodynamic Modeling of Metal Reduction from Oxidized High-Iron Nickel Ore Melts. Steel Transl. 51, 22–26 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3103/S0967091221010137

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