Dribs and Drabs #1Time to bore you with actual details of what's happening currently in the pellet industry. This is an actual study that was just completed with Pyrogenesis. There is the grate-kiln process and the straight grate process. Plasma is only being looked at for the straight grate process. My apologies if someone already posted this but there are so many posts to filter through that I am just going to do this.
The grate-kiln process is best suited for iron ore with high magnetite content since hematite ore produces more fines when mixed in the rotating kiln and gives larger radiation losses [15]. The complexity of implementing plasma torches in the grate-kiln process lies in replacing the large flame and the radiation heat transfer contribution that it provides since a plasma flame does not provide the same radiation properties. It is therefore likely that large process modifications must be made to implement the plasma torches and maintain sufficiently good pellet quality. In the straight-grate process the majority of the heat transfer to the pellets occur via convection, which means that changing the energy source has a larger potential for success with smaller process modifications.
Since the implementation of plasma torches is more complex in the grate-kiln process compared to the straight-grate process, the straight-grate process is better suited for a first assessment of the implementation of electric heating. This is why the grate-kiln process is not the focus of this report. If implementation of electric heating is successful in the straight grate process, further studies will most likely focus on converting the grate-kiln process to electric heating as well.