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Analysis of Melting Process of Electric Arc Furnace Dust Pellets in Iron Bath, Slag Bath, and Graphite Crucible

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Abstract

Owing to its high Zn content, electric arc furnace dust (EAFD) requires treatment through a nonblast-furnace process for effective recycling. The electric smelting reduction furnace is a promising route for melting EAFD pellets to recover zinc as a Zn-rich secondary ash and iron as pig iron. To elucidate the melting behavior of EAFD pellets under metallurgical conditions, FactSage calculations and melting experiments in a graphite crucible, iron bath, and slag bath were conducted. The results showed that slag viscosity decreased with increasing temperature and FeO content, with FeO exerting a greater effect. At 1773 K, the slag viscosity decreased from 0.305 to 0.276 Pa s as the FeO content increased from 0 to 2 wt.%. The melting behavior in the graphite crucible and iron bath followed a similar mechanism, in which liquid slag formed locally within the pellet and progressively dissolved the surrounding unmelted material. The iron bath enhanced heat transfer and reduced the complete melting time from 600 to 360 s. In contrast, the slag bath promoted slag-forming reactions at the pellet–slag interface, resulting in a distinct melting mode and accelerating pellet melting. Complete melting was achieved within 240 s in the slag bath. These results demonstrate that the surrounding metallurgical environment strongly influences the melting kinetics and subsequent slag–iron separation of EAFD pellets.

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Funding

This work was funded by National Key R&D Program of China, 2019YFC1905703, Xuefeng She; Integration and equipment of key technologies for solid and dangerous waste disposal in collaboration with steel and gold treatment furnace and kiln, 2022-0703, Xuefeng She.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallurgy, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

    Chao Yang, Xuefeng She & Qingguo Xue

  2. College of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Wuchang College of Technology, Wuhan, 430223, Hubei, China

    Qiwen Guo

  3. Research Institute, Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., Shanghai, 201900, China

    Ruyi Wang

Authors
  1. Chao Yang
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  2. Qiwen Guo
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  3. Xuefeng She
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  4. Ruyi Wang
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  5. Qingguo Xue
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Contributions

Chao Yang: methodology, investigation, data curation, writing—original draft. Qiwen Guo: investigation, formal analysis, data curation, writing—original draft. Xuefeng She: supervision, project administration, writing—review and editing, funding acquisition. Ruyi Wang: investigation, formal analysis, data curation. Qingguo Xue: supervision, funding acquisition.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xuefeng She.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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The contributing editor for this article was M. Akbar Rhamdhani.

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Yang, C., Guo, Q., She, X. et al. Analysis of Melting Process of Electric Arc Furnace Dust Pellets in Iron Bath, Slag Bath, and Graphite Crucible. J. Sustain. Metall. (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40831-026-01697-4

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