Reduction of molybdenum oxide from steelmaking slags by pure liquid iron

The effects of reaction temperature, slag basicity and FeO concentration on the reduction of molybdenum oxide from steelmaking slags by pure liquid iron were investigated experimently. The reduction kinetics of molybdenum oxide by liquid iron was analysed. The reaction models were developed based on the condition that diffusion of [Mo] in liquid iron and CaMoO4 in slag is the control steps, respectively. These reaction models were tested using data from a series of experiments. The results indicate that under the present experimental conditions, the temperature and the FeO content, other than slag basicity, have some effects on the reduction of molybdenum oxide from steelmaking slags by pure liquid iron. Both the molybdenum oxide reduction rate and final reduction ratio increase with an increase of temperature and a decrease of FeO content. The diffusion of CaMoO4 in slag which dominated overall reduction process is the only one ratecontrolling step with its apparent activation energy 294 kJ/mol. The reduction of molybdenum oxide used directly as alloy additive can be further enhanced by strong stirring in the converter practice.

Nucleation During the Solidification of Atomized Droplets Catalyzed by Spherically-Shaped Oxide Particles

Nucleation temperatures are calculated for the case of solidification in atomized metal droplets where spherical substrate particles act as nucleation catalysts. Following the method of Fletcher, the effect of substrate size on catalytic potency is illustrated, and the model is applied to the nucleation of bcc solid from pure, liquid iron containing oxide substrate particles as catalysts. Supercooling data from the literature are used to determine wetting angles for alumina, silica, and rare-earth oxide. Oxide particle-size distributions are then used to predict the supercooling behavior of atomized liquid droplets based on the probability that a given size of droplet will contain a particular size of substrate particle. A transition size regime is found separating droplet sizes undergoing very small and very large supercoolings, respectively. This is discussed in terms of the types and number densities of inclusions present during atomization of the melt.