A Novel Technique for Preparation and Separation of Iron Carbide from Sintering Dust

Abstract

Sintering dust is a typical refractory secondary iron resource. A technology-based utilization of sintering dust as iron carbide by applying chlorination, carburization, and magnetic separation is proposed. Under optimized conditions, an electric furnace burden comprised of 83.51% Fe and 6.52% C and with a corresponding iron recovery rate of 81.21% is prepared. Meanwhile, 96.97% Pb can be removed by chlorination and magnetic separation. Furthermore, the separation mechanism is revealed using scanning electron microscopy, X-ray powder diffraction, and optical microscopy. The results show that sodium sulfate can promote the carburizing efficiency of sintering dust, strengthen the growth of iron carbide particles, and improve the embedding relationship between iron carbide and gangue minerals, which significantly promotes the separation efficiency. The study demonstrates that the preparation of iron carbide from sintering dust using the proposed technology is a feasible method.