USING OF WASTE PET (POLYETHYLENE TEREPHTHALATE) AS AN ALTERNATIVE REDUCTANT IN IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY

Abstract

Using of plastics in the world increases day by day and the amount of waste plastics increase as a result of high consumption. The long degradation period of plastics in nature cause the plastic wastes to be a major problem for environmental damage and pollution. By recycling of plastics these problems can be eliminated. For this aim plastics can be used as alternative reductant for iron and steel industry instead of coke. Additionally, high production cost and high consumption of coke has always been the primary problem of iron and steel industry. The aim of this study is reduction of costs due to coke consumption in iron making and environmental damage caused by waste plastics. By this aim waste plastics were added to composite pellets as reductant. In this study PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) which is the remarkable percent of plastic wastes, was used due to its high carbon content. In the experiments, composite pellets which contain PET wastes and magnetite iron ore were prepared. After that, composite pellets were reduced at relatively high temperatures during various reduction times in order to investigate its behavior during reduction melting process. The results of experiments showed that reduction rate of iron ore increased as a function of time.