Effective Utilization of Blast Furnace Flue Dust of Integrated Steel Plants

Investigations were carried out on the effective utilization of blast furnace flue dust samples obtained from the two integrated steel plants at Rourkela and Jamshedpur. The samples essentially contained unburnt coke and iron rich grains as the value added products. Flotation technique was employed to recover the carbon values present in the sample. It was possible to obtain a product containing around 80% carbon with more than 90% recovery from both the flue dust samples using diesel oil and MIBC as the collector and frother respectively. The results obtained by the column flotation technique were quite encouraging due to its obvious advantages over conventional cells. Iron rich grains (magnetite, hematite, wustite & Fe metals) were recovered by low intensity magnetic separation (LIMS) technique. Magnetic separation of flotation tailings gave an iron concentrate of 61-64% Fe with 50-56% over all recovery. Studies were carried out also to remove the alkali content of the flue dust sample by scrubbing and washing, so that the material as a whole could be recycled for sinter making. However, total recovery of potassium was not possible because of its complex nature of association with other elements. © 2002 SDU. All rights reserved.