Carbothermic reduction by microwave heating

The carbothermic reduction of iron ores is the most important reaction in ironmaking and has been performed mainly in the Blast Furnace. In the last years, several new processes have been proposed as alternatives, and many types of reactors have been tested. The most promising processes are those in which a mixture of iron ore and carbonaceous material is heated at high temperatures, promoting the reaction with formation of metallic iron. It became clear that one of the main obstacles to a fast reaction is heat transfer from the surroundings to the core of the mixture. On the other hand, several studies have shown that microwave heating is very effective in some industrial processes, like drying and sintering of ceramics. In the microwave heating, the material is heated from the inside, thus avoiding the constraints of heat transfer from the surroundings to the inner part of the material. In this work, microwave heating has been applied to the carbothermic reduction of hematite. The obtained results have shown that it is possible to heat iron ore-carbon mixtures above the reduction temperature, and the reaction rates have been compared to those obtained employing conventional heating with the same mixtures.