Recycling of steel plant mill scale via iron ore pelletisation process

Mill scale is an iron oxide waste generated during steelmaking, casting and rolling. Total generation of mill scale at JSWSL is around 150 t/day and contains 60-70% FeO and 30-35% Fe2O3. To recover the iron, the mill scale must be smelted in a blast furnace or other reduction furnace; however, it is usually too fine to use without previous agglomeration such as via pellet or sinter mix. JSWSL operates a 4.2 Mtpa pellet plant to produce pellets for Corex and BF ironmaking units. The aim of this study is to determine the effect of mill scale on pellet properties. Detailed laboratory basket trials were conducted using up to 40% of mill scale in the pellet mix. The addition of mill scale up to 10% is considered to provide the optimum balance of chemical, physical and metallurgical properties of the pellet.