Abstract The Direct Reduction (DR) process has been growing worldwide, and there are strong context suggestions that it will grow even more. One of these factors is the environmental pressure that occurs worldwide, and there are already projects to migrate Blast Furnace route steel plants to the Direct Reduction (DR) route, due to its smaller carbon footprint. Considering the importance of this process and the challenges of carrying out experimental tests on a pilot scale, an adequate way to evaluate the process and its impacts is through numerical simulations. There are different techniques applied to models that describe the counter-current reactor in the DR process, but none of them account for the clustering phenomenon. Clustering occurs because of the sintering of the metallic iron on the surface of the pellets in such a way that they attach to each other, forming clusters that hinder the gas flow through the shaft. The present study attempted to adapt a numerical model of a DR process to account for the effect of the cluster formation. Some clustering index equations from literature and some developed as part of this study were used and tested in the model, as a function of temperature, by varying the solid volume fraction in the control unit. The equation that resulted in the adjusted output closest to the current empirical value was implemented in the model and proved to be successful.

A quantificação de goetita, magnetita, martita e especularita em minérios de ferro foi realizada através de uma combinação de análises químicas e difração de raios X. Observou-se que a intensidade do pico de difração (111) da goetita é constante para uma determinada amostra, se o mesmo porta-amostras é utilizado. Curvas de calibração com um comportamento linear foram obtidas usando-se as áreas do pico (111) e as quantidades de goetita obtidas através da espectroscopia Mössbauer e microscopia ótica. Além disso, a largura integral do pico (012) da hematita aumenta linearmente com o aumento da quantidade de martita, permitindo, assim, uma estimativa dos teores de martita e especularita.

The quantification of goethite, magnetite, martite and specularite in iron ores was successfully achieved by a combination of wet chemical analysis and x-ray diffraction. It was found that the intensity of the goethite (111) peak is constant for a certain sample provided that the same sample holder is used. Calibration curves with a linear behavior have been derived using the areas of the above mentioned peak and the amounts of goethite obtained by Mössbauer spectroscopy and optical microscopy. In addition, the integral width of the hematite (012) line broadens linearly as the amount of martite increases, thus allowing an estimation of the amounts of martite and specularite.