Effect of Minerals on Coke Analogue Carbon Bonding and Reactivity

Metallurgical coke is an essential reagent in the ironmaking blast furnace process. A better understanding of coke behaviour (graphitisation and reactivity) in the blast furnace is critical to improving its performance in the blast furnace. This study introduces and evaluates a new approach to study coke behaviour, through the use of a coke analogue. A coke analogue is a laboratory tool developed to minimise the uncertainty associated with the complexity and inherent heterogeneity of metallurgical coke. In this study, the principal aim was to establish how representative of metallurgical coke is the coke analogue and develop a fundamental understanding of the effects of elemental/metallic Fe on the carbon (sp2–sp3) bonding and reactivity of the coke analogue. The form of the Fe addition was examined by adding elemental iron (Fe) and magnetite (Fe3O4) to the coke analogue. The magnetite was reduced to metallic iron Fe) during the production of the coke analogue.