Iron Ore Sintering: Raw Materials and Granulation

Sintering is an agglomeration process that fuses iron ore fines, fluxes, recycled products, slag-forming elements and coke. The purpose of sintering is to obtain a product with suitable composition, quality and granulometry to be used as burden material in the blast furnace. This process is widely studied and researched in the iron and steelmaking industry. In this context, achieving an adequate sintered product depends on the adequate raw materials supply and the previous stage to the sintering process, granulation. For that reason, in this paper, the granulation process is studied as a consequence of being the source of pre-agglomerated materials for the subsequent sintering process. Thus, the main tests used to the determination of the properties are reviewed as well as the main granulation processes.