Patents
A process has been developed to prepare iron carbide (Fe3C) with 97 wt% purity from iron ore slime. DC extended arc thermal plasma was employed to carry out the reduction and carburization reaction in the temperature range 1200-1600°C. The process takes 10-20 minutes time to complete the reaction in kg scale of operation which is significantly less compared to few hours taken by conventional fluidized bed process. From x-ray diffraction it was identified that the compound phase impurities present in the product were FeC, Fe2C, FesC2 (maxm. 2 wt% in total) and Fe2O3 (maxm. 1 wt%). Chemical analysis showed the critical elements to exist in the following range : C 6-9 wt%, S < 0.01 wt%, P 0.11-0.14 wt%. Microhardness of the product was recorded to lie in the range 570-660 VHNo.1. The recovery of the FesC at different power input levels was studied and the highest yield of 92.2% was observed at the power input of 2.64 kWh/kg