Fe-based amorphous alloys with superior soft-magnetic properties prepared via smelting reduction of high-phosphorus oolitic iron ore

Fe-based amorphous alloys generally suffer from the impurities in industrial raw materials and the high cost of pure raw materials. In this work, a revolutionary way for preparing Fe-based amorphous alloys from the refractory high-phosphorus oolitic iron ore with the combination of smelting reduction and melt-spinning was proposed for the simultaneously utilization of Fe and P elements. By using the smelting reduction, Fe–P alloys with high Fe and P recovery rate of 99% and 92% can be obtained, and the C content in the resultant Fe–P alloys can be accurately tailored by adjusting the C/O ratio. For the implementation of the developed process, the reduced Fe–P alloys with significantly different C content and the corresponding Fe83P3C1Si2B11, Fe76P5C3.8Si5.7B9.5 and Fe80P10C9Si1 (at. %) amorphous alloys with close C content were chosen. These resultant alloys all exhibit high AFA, low Hc and high μe as well as wide annealing window comparable to that of the alloys prepared with pure raw materials, demonstrating the feasibility of the developed process for energy-saving and resource-friendly production of soft-magnetic materials via smelting reduction of iron ores.