LAUSR

One important step of the iron ore sintering process is the raw materials preparation, which means that these materials need to be mixed and subsequently granulated. Recently, due to the increase of fine portion of the sinter feeds and also the availability of concentrates, such as pellet feeds, this step played an important role to guarantee good permeability conditions for sintering process.1,2) Granulation is the term used to name the process of increasing particle size to a certain optimal size with spherical shape by using fine and very fine particles. According to Walker3) the granulation happens when a bed of solid particles moves with simultaneous intensive mixing in the presence of a liquid phase. This movement provides particle collisions and individual particles coalesce. Further granule growth takes place by layering on to this nuclei. The granulation is considered a physical phenomenon, involving physical interactions mainly due to capillary forces. Granulation Behavior of an Iron Ore Sintering Mixture Containing High Grade Pellet Feed with Different Specific Surface