Our Company is always ready for experiments and common research projects.
CCI does not only provide quality control services, but also works in close rapport with the largest Ukrainian companies of metallurgical, coke and mining divisions as for implementation of new technologies and strategies.
Our company took part in a number of such common projects.
CCI LLC took part in the development of regulatory documents regarding the methods for solid fuel sampling and sample preparation.
Our employees were one of the first in Ukraine who opened up the method of determination the reactivity and mechanical strength of coke, which is now widely used in the coke industry.
At the present moment in cooperation with one of the metallurgical enterprises of Ukraine a large and serious research is being done to study possible factors that affect the metallurgical properties of pellets, including the mechanical strength of pellets.
Requirements for the metallurgical properties of pellets are determined by the problems of organizing highly efficient operation of units of their subsequent processing. Regardless of the technology of this processing, whether it is blast furnace smelting or direct production of iron, the recovery process is common for both materials. During the process hematite crystals are subsequently converted into magnetite, wustite, and iron. The crystal-chemical transformations occurring during the recovery process and the accompanying state of tension to a large extent determine the pellets response during reduction. Pellets durability increasing usually leads to a decrease in reducibility and vice versa – the phenomena of softening, swelling, and fracture lead to cracking, which increases the size of the reaction surface, and, as a result, improves reducibility. Thus, depending on the specific conditions of metal production, technologists make a compromise between reducibility and durability.
Another general requirement for pellets, regardless of how it is used in future, is the stability of particle size distribution. Herewith good gas permeability of the batch layer is achieved. However, all known recovery process models do not take into account possible changes in the composition of the grains arising from the pellets destruction during their recovery.
The factors which determine quality of pellets are the temperature and the contact time of Fe oxides with the reducing gas.
CCI laboratory has currently implemented the tests which will make it possible to predict the ongoing production processes, improve technical and economic indicators of blast furnace production in each specific condition.
For today the following test methods have already been implemented:
- determination of iron ore reducibility by the reduction rate index according to DSTU ISO 4695;
- determination of the free swelling index of iron ore pellets for blast furnace raw materials in accordance with DSTU ISO 4698;
- determination of reducibility by the index of the final degree of reduction according to DSTU ISO 7215;
- dynamic fracture tests during reduction at low temperatures according to DSTU ISO 13930;
- determination of the relative reducibility according to ISO 7992.
In addition, our laboratory began the research of the mineralogical composition of iron ore pellets. It will allow us to use a comprehensive approach to the study of the pellets quality.
Our laboratory is underway to develop and implement methods for determining the mineral forms of iron in iron ore materials.