Studies of the thermal stability of briquettes based on microsilica

The object of study in this work is microsilica. Microsilica is a pulverized technogenic waste generated during the smelting of technical silicon in industries. The intended use of this material is to obtain the highest quality grades of technical silicon in the end result without the use of expensive quartz. Microsilica is a finely dispersed powder, the direct processing (without preliminary preparation) of which into technical silicon is impossible in ore-thermal furnaces. That requires the manufacture of high-strength briquettes based on it, meeting all the requirements for raw materials for ore-thermal furnaces. In this paper, the authors present the results of a study of the thermal stability of microsilica-based briquettes in order to optimize the physicochemical properties of the resulting briquettes. The tested microsilica briquettes with various carbonaceous reducing agents (screenings of coke of thermo-oxidative coking, screenings of charcoal, etc.) were obtained on a large-scale laboratory roller briquetting press ZZXM-4. The evaluation of the thermal stability of the briquettes was carried out according to the method in which the resulting briquettes are subjected to thermal shock followed by abrasion on a special drum. The thermal resistance of a briquette is defined as the ratio of the weight of the main body of the briquette after the abrasion test to the sum of the weight of the main body and the crumbled material. The dependence of thermal stability on the granulometric composition of briquettes was also determined. The optimal granulometric composition was determined, with which the briquettes have satisfactory thermal stability. Thus, the most technologically advanced granulometric composition of the briquetting charge for reduction smelting in an ore-thermal furnace was established. It is best to use briquettes with granulometric compositions of the appropriate ratio of fractions 0-1; 1-3; 3-5 mm with the following proportions 35/35/30 and 60/20/15, as well as briquettes with particle size distribution within these ranges of variation.