Metal recovery from stainless steel mill scale by microwave heating

In order to recover metallic components from the mill scale generated in the hot rolling process of stainless steels more efficiently, a carbothermic reduction of the mill scale using microwave heating was carried out. The mixture of the mill scale and graphite particles was heated at a very rapid heating rate of 100°C/min via microwave heating. As a result of this process, self-assembled metallic droplets of 1 mm to 5 mm in diameter were produced in less than 15 min.