A case study on large-scale production for iron oxide pellets: Ezhou pelletization plant of the BAOWU

ABSTRACT

The Ezhou pelletization plant of the BAOWU with production capacity of 5,000,000 ton oxide pellets per year has the biggest single production line of Grate–Kiln–Ring cooler, which was provided by Metso Company. The iron concentrate was mainly imported from Brazil and self-provided by Jinshandian. The iron concentrates were dried and ground by the high pressure roller. The ground iron concentrates were pelleted by drum and disc pelletizers. The qualified green pellets were subjected to grate, rotary kiln, and ring cooler successively. The innovation and creation of process and equipment of Ezhou pelletization plant of BAOWU plays an exemplary role for the application of large-scale grate-kiln-cooler in iron and steel industrial. The use of the high pressure roller grinding significantly improved the pelletization ability of the iron concentrate and the quality of the finished pellets. Compared with other same scale grinding equipment, it is more energy-saving. The combined technique of high pressure roller with wet ball mill grinding was used to treat some hard specularite with large particle size. The first successful application and design of electrostatic precipitator on the large-scale grate-kiln in China provides a good foundation for other large-scale pellets plants.

KEYWORDS:

• Large-scale
• pelletization plant
• case study
• iron oxide pellets
• Ezhou

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the article.

Funding

The financial supports for this work from Natural Science Foundation of Hubei Province of China (2016CFA013) and Wuhan Science and Technology Bureau (2016070204020156) are gratefully acknowledged.