In this article, mineralogical phase changes and structural changes of iron oxides and phosphorus-bearing minerals during the direct reduction roasting process were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). It has been found that the reduction of hematite follows the following general pathway: Fe2O3Fe3O4FeOFe. The last step of the reduction process contains two side reactions: either FeOFe2SiO4Fe or FeOFeAl2O4Fe depending on the micro mineralogical makeup of the ore. In the reduction process of FeOFe, oolitic structure was destroyed completely and fluorapatite was diffused into gangue while metallic phase is coarsening at temperatures below 1200 degrees C. Therefore, the separation of phosphorus-bearing gangue and metallic iron can be achieved by wet grinding and magnetic separation, and low phosphorus content metallic iron powder can be obtained. However, when the temperature reached 1250 degrees C and beyond, some of the fluorapatite was reduced to elemental P and diffused into the metallic iron phase, making the P content higher in the metallic iron powder.
