Production of metallic iron from electric arc furnace (EAF) slag using palm shells char/coke blends

The abundances of agricultural waste are currently a huge global problem. In this work, the potential for producing metallic irons from Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) slag using new carbon material from agricultural waste blended with conventional source as carbon materials were investigated. Carbon material from agricultural waste was generated from palm shells waste by pyrolyzed at 450°C within 2 hours in nitrogen gas flow. Reduction studied were conducted on composite pellets of the EAF slag containing 43.18 wt%Fe2O3 with palm shells char and coke at various blend ratios of palm shells char/coke. The degree of reduction after 20 minutes reaction time at reduction temperature of 1550 °C under argon atmosphere was determined and the reaction products which were metallic iron particles were characterized by SEM/EDS for each blends. The measured degree of reduction ranged from 23.3 to 24.3 % with the highest was attained by the palm shells char/coke blend prepared in the ratio of 50:50. It was observed that metallic iron particles can be produced from EAF slag using palm shells char/coke blends. SEM/EDS result confirmed that the increasing the weight ratio of palm shells char enhanced the reduction reaction where the highest %Fe content in metallic iron attained for the blend of palm shells char and coke prepared in the ratio 50:50. This finding indicates that the carbon material form palm shells waste potentially to be used as reductant in steelmaking process.