https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4778-1388
![Sample our Built Environment journals, sign in here to start your access, Latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5926/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Built-Environment.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
India is an agricultural country, whose main crop is rice. Processing and milling of rice crops generate waste which is not yet potentially utilized, at most, it can be used for combustion purposes only. Hence, this research attempts to utilize rice husk volatiles (RHv) as a reducing agent for iron ore pellets in iron and steel making. Selected rice husk (RH) consists of approximately 72% volatile matter. The reduction process was carried out at different temperatures at 800, 900, 1000, and 1100°C and time intervals of 15, 30, 45, 60, and 75 min in a double chamber vertical furnace, using RHv as a reducing agent. It has been observed that the reduction percentage of iron ore obtained in case of RHv is 79.01% at 1100°C in 75 min. Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis show the reduced pellets’ morphological characteristics and phase transformation, respectively. Kinetic analysis was done using the shrinking core model and it shows that at lower temperatures, that is, 800, 900, and 1000°C, reduction was diffusion control and followed by chemical reaction control at 1100°C. The activation energy obtained for diffusion and chemical control was 159 KJ/mol and 83.93 KJ/mol, respectively.
Disclosure statement
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Nomenclature
| (RH) | = | Rice husk |
| (RHv) | = | Rice husk volatiles |
| (VM) | = | Volatile Matter |
| (FC) | = | Fixed carbon |
| (A) | = | Ash |
| (M) | = | Moisture |
| (FESEM) | = | Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope |
| (XRD) | = | X-ray diffraction |
| (DRI) | = | Direct reduced iron |
| BF | = | (Blast furnace) |
| (GHG) | = | Greenhouse gas |
| (GCV) | = | Gross calorific value |
| (GC) | = | Gas chromatography |
| (XRF) | = | X-ray fluorescence spectrometer |
| (ASTM) | = | American society for testing and materials |
| (rpm) | = | Revolutions per minute |
| (FeT) | = | Total iron |
| (P900, P1000, P1100) | = | Pellets reduced with rice husk volatiles at 900, 1000 and 1100ºC |
| (KJ) | = | Kilo joule. |
Supplementary material
Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15567036.2022.2098417