A clean disposal method of carbide slag with carbon emission reduction: Used as a flux for iron ore sintering

Limestone or quicklime is a necessary flux in the iron ore sintering process. Its production and application process will cause CO2 emissions and various environmental pollution, but this has not attracted enough attention. Carbide slag (CS) is a calcium-rich solid waste produced in acetylene production, the harmless disposal of which is still incomplete, resulting in soil and groundwater pollution. This study investigated the granulation characteristics and sintering performance of the sintering mixture with different proportions of CS. The results show that replacing limestone with an appropriate proportion of CS is promising and beneficial to the formation of high-quality bonding phase. When CS accounts for 75% of the total mass of CS and limestone, the tumbler index increases by 8.10% and the comprehensive index decreases only from 100 to 96.16, which is within the acceptable range. The application of CS in iron ore sintering can achieve a clean disposal of it and a considerable carbon emission reduction, as the main component of which is Ca(OH)2. (c) 2024 Chinese Society of Particuology and Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.