Melting Behaviour of Ferronickel Slags

Abstract

The industrial manufacturing of ferronickel in electric furnaces produces large amounts of slag with strong acidic character and high melting points, which seriously stresses the furnace refractory lining. In this study, the melting behavior of synthetically produced ferronickel slags on magnesia as refractory material was determined by means of a hot stage microscope. Therefore, slags comprising the main oxides SiO2 (35–70 wt.%), MgO (15–45 wt.%) and Fe2O3 (5–35 wt.%) were melted in a graphite crucible and afterwards analyzed by a hot stage microscope. The design of experiments, which was created by the statistic software MODDE®, included 20 experiments with varying slag compositions as well as atmospheres. The evaluation of the test results occurred at three different characteristic states of the samples like the softening point according to DIN 51730 and the temperatures at which the area of residual cross-section of the samples amounted to 30% and 40%, respectively, of the original value depending of their SiO2/MgO ratio and iron oxide content. Additionally, the thickness of the zone influenced by the slag was measured and evaluated.