The properties of dust collected from electric arc furnace of ferro manganese production units was investigated, and also the metallic manganese was recovered from the dust by aluminothermy process. The ferromanganese dust collected from electric arc furnace contained about 15% of manganese oxide (Mn3O4) and 9% of carbon as the contaminant, and have a 5um of 50% median diameter and irregular particle shape. The carbon contaminant in the dust could be reduced until about 0.1~0.5% level by roasting in the air at a temperature of 600~900C for 60minutes. The recovery of manganese could not be carried out using only ferromanganese dust from electric arc furnace by aluminothermy process, but the ferromanganese which contained manganese of about 92% and iron of about 5% could be obtained from the mixture of ferromanganese dusts from electric arc furnace and converter. The best mixing condition of dust fixed at electric arc furnace dust / converter dust ratio of 1:9 and 2:8, and the mixing rato of 3:7 or more could not separated the metal and slag from the reactant after aluminothermy reaction.

알루미늄 테르밋 반응의 환원제로서 알루미늄 분말은 200 메쉬 이하의 미분이 필요하나, 알루미늄의 높은 인성과 분말 제조비 때문에 경제적으로 용이하지 않다. 그러므로 Mn3O4 분진 환원용 알루미늄 미분의 제조 코스트를 낮추기 위해, 알루미늄 합금분말의 제특성이 검토되었다. 망간을 다량 함유한 알루미늄 합금괴는 취성이 큰 금속간 화합물을 함유하고 있기 때문에 쉽게 파쇄할 수 있다. 또 망간은 망간 합금철의 주성분이다. Al-15%Mn 합금분말을 기계적 파쇄법으로 저렴하게 제조할 수 있다. Al 분말 대신에 Al-15%Mn 합금분말을 사용한 테르밋 반응 결과는 환원제로 순 알루미늄 분말을 사용한 경우와 같이 고순도 망간 합금철을 얻을 수 있었다. Al-15%Mn 합금분말를 이용한 Mn3O4 분진의 망간 회수율은 알루미늄 분말을 이용한 경우의 약 65% 보다 높은 약 70%의 높은 수준을 보였으며, 이는 비산이 적은 것에 기인한다.

In order to make high-purity ferro-manganese from Mn3O4 waste dust, the application of aluminothermite process to the reduction of the waste dust was investigated. The mixture from Mn3O4 dust as metallic source and Al metal powder as the reductant ignited, and reduced with an extremely intense exothermic reaction. The rapid propagation of the aluminothermite reaction occurred spontaneously and stably by ignition of the mixture. The Manganese having some alloy elements emerged as liquids due to the high temperatures reached up to about 2,500℃ and separated from the liquid by their differences of specific gravity. The result of thermite reaction showed the fact that can be obtained high purity ferro-manganese which have over about 90% of manganese content and lower impurities such as C, P, S than those of KS D3712 specification. The recovery of manganese from Mn3O4 dust was lower level of about 65% than about 75% from manganese ore by electric furnace process, that is due to spatter loss because of its extremely intense thermite reaction. But it will be improved by the process designed to provide CaO as the cooler or to use the Al metal powder having larger particle size distribution.

In order to investigate behavior of abnormal expansion of the iron-copper compacts, we compared the dilatometric curves of the compacts which mixed the copper powder to the iron powder with those of compacts which mixed the copper powder to the iron-copper alloy powder. The dilatometric curves were obtained below the sintering conditions, which heated up to 115 by a heating rate of 1/min, held for 60min at 115 and cooled down at a rate of 2/min to room temperature. The dilatometric curves of the compacts showed the different expansion behavior at temperatures above the copper melting point in spite of same chemical composition. All of the compacts of former case showed large expansion, but all of the compacts in latter case showed large contraction. The microstructures of sintered compacts also showed the different progress in alloying of the copper into the iron powder. Namely we could observe the segregation at alloy part of copper into iron powder in case of the sintered compacts, which mixed the copper powder to the iron powder, but could not observe the segregation in compacts which mixed the copper powder to the iron-copper alloy powder. But the penetration of liquid copper into the interstices between solid particles was occurred at both cases. Therefore, the showing of the different dimensional changes in the compacts in spite of same chemical composition is due to more the alloying of copper into iron powder than the penetration of liquid copper into the interstices between solid particles.

In order to reduce the sintering temperature of iron based sintered parts, sinteing properties of iron-copper prealloyed powder were investigated at various temperatures in the range of 700∼890, and than the rusults were compared with those of the conventional iron-copper-tin compact using elemental powders, The using of prealloyed as a new process improved its sintering performance at lower temperature than elemental powder as the conventional process. The relative sintered density and radial crushing stength of the compact using prealloyed were higher than those of using elemental powder at all sintering temperature. For example, the radial curength of the compact using powder was about 50kg/mm2 at 700, while that of the compact using elemental powder sintered at 890 was 43kg/mm2.