Pretreatment of Manganese Ores in Different Gas-Atmospheres- a Method to Reduce Energy Consumption and Co2 Emissions in Mn-Alloy Production

Abstract

Pretreatment of manganese ores with sustainable energy sources has a potential for reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions in manganese alloy production. Technologies to obtain this are currently being developed in EU H2020 project PreMa. Pretreatment of industrial manganese ores with different gas composition have been investigated experimentally in 1 kg scale with ore sizes used in industry. Degree of prereduction and fines formation varied with ore sources as well as with gas atmosphere and temperature. By heating in Argon, air, or CO2 gas the Mn-oxides were reduced to Mn2O3. Further reduction towards and down to MnO was only obtained when CO-containing gas was used. On-set temperatures for the different reactions are discussed

Keywords: Mn-alloy production, CO2 emissions, energy consumption, Pretreatment