The
application characteristics of cost-effective commercial medium-grade
charcoal (MG charcoal) in the sinter-making process were assessed
in this paper. The results showed that, in comparison to high-grade
charcoal (HG charcoal), MG charcoal was characterized by a lower fixed
carbon content, a higher volatile content, and a higher porosity and
specific surface area, which led to its even greater difference in
thermochemical behaviors with coke breeze than HG charcoal. This property
of MG charcoal resulted in a faster sintering speed, a lower bed temperature,
and a shorter holding time above 1200 °C for adhesive mineral
melting, which restrained its proper replacement percentage at 20%,
while it was 40% for HG charcoal. To achieve a sintering performance
similar to the HG charcoal, the combustion behavior of MG charcoal
and coke breeze was regulated simultaneously by coating fine-grained
iron ore concentrate and adhering CaO, respectively. It was found
that coating concentrate was useful to reduce the combustion rate
of MG charcoal for reduced probability to contact air directly, while
adhering CaO helped to accelerate the combustion rate of coke breeze
as a result of the potential catalytic effect, which finally exhibited
a relatively matched combustion speed. Sinter pot trials verified
that, after pretreating MG charcoal particles and coke breeze through
the pregranulation process, MG charcoal replacing 40% coke breeze
showed a comparable sintering performance to the case using 100% coke
breeze. The emissions of CO2, SO2, and NO
x
achieved an obvious reduction by 21.70,
27.75, and 18.31%, respectively.