Microwave and Conventional Carbothermic Reduction of Chromite Ore: A Comparison

The reduction of chromite oreChromite ore is an important step in the production of ferrochromium alloy and stainless steel. The comparison between conventional and microwave reductionMicrowave reduction of chromite oreChromite ore was investigated in this study with a focus on the effect of reduction time. Compared to conventional reductionConventional reduction, microwave reductionMicrowave reduction of chromite oreChromite ore was more efficient by breaking the stable chromium-containing spinelSpinel structureStructure, improving reduction performance of the ore with generation of large Fe–Cr particlesParticle. By fixing reduction temperature of 1100 °C and C/O molar ratio of 1.2, the metallization degrees of chromium and iron of the briquettes constituted by chromite oreChromite ore and coke after microwave reductionMicrowave reduction increased from 91.57 and 83.03% to 93.53 and 85.78%, respectively, with increasing time from 0 to 120 min, which were higher than those obtained by conventional reductionConventional reduction for 4 h (7.00% for chromium and 67.26% for iron).