Iranian Journal of Materials Science and Engineering

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Combustion synthesis is a special thermophysico-chemical process applied for production of intermetallic compounds. In the present work, a reaction–diffusion numerical model was developed to analyze the combustion synthesis of aluminide intermetallics by self-propagating high-temperature synthesis process. In order to verify the reliability of the numerical model, an experimental setup was designed and used to perform the combustion synthesis of nickel and titanium aluminides. The developed model was further used to determine the temperature history of a powder mixture compact during self-propagating high-temperature synthesis. The effect of compact relative density on combustion temperature and wave propagation velocity was also studied.

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In the present study, reduction of zinc oxide from the pellets made of steelmaking electric arc furnace dust has been investigated. Effects of such parameters as the type of carbon material (graphite, coke and charcoal) as well as time and temperature on the reduction reaction have been examined. The reduced (dimensionless) time method was applied to perform a kinetic analysis of the system. Experimental results showed that increasing the temperature in the range of 925-1150°C results in a remarkable increase in the reduction rate. It was also shown that the reduction process is controlled by chemical reaction. Meaningful difference in the activation energy values calculated for reduction with graphite (24.75 kcal/mol), coke (18.13 kcal/mol) and charcoal (11.52 kcal/mol) indicate the predominant role of chemical reaction (carbon gasification) in the overall reaction rate and its rate-controlling mechanism. Carbothermal reduction of pelletized EAF dust proved to be an efficient reduction method, so that above 90% reduction was achieved in about one hour at temperatures around 1100°C.