Mechanism of vanadic titanomagnetite solid-state reduction

The influence mechanism of vanadic titanomagnetite solid-state reduction was studied in this paper. Optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to characterize the structure and phases of the samples. The results show that the dense structure is not the reason that limits the reducibility of Panxi vanadic titanomagnetite. Metallization rate of 93 % was achieved when it was reduced at 1100 °C for 100 min. After pre-oxidation, Fe₉TiO₁₅ and Fe₂O₃ are the main phases of samples. Pre-oxidation could destroy the dense structure of vanadic titanomagnetite and increase the specific surface area of particles. However, reducibility of vanadic titanomagnetite is not improved obviously by pre-oxidation, with metallization rate increasing only 1 % under the same reduction conditions, and the generated metallic iron grains are smaller. Phase transformation of vanadic titanomagnetite at different reduction temperatures shows that the presence of FeTi₂O₅ is the main reason that limits the reducibility of Panxi vanadic titanomagnetite.