The fluidized bed reactor can be used to check the reducibility of different iron ore fines in fluidized state by measuring the change of sample weight during reduction. The effect of different process parameters on the reducibility such as temperature, gas composition and pressure can be observed. An installed sub-sampling system allows taking out samples of the material during the reduction procedure.

Principles of the fluidized bed reactor:

• due to the inner diameter of 160 mm, a sample mass up to 5000 g can be used during on batch operation
• the temperature can be controlled up to 800°C, also temperature profiles are possible
• the reducing gas mixture can be consist of H₂, H₂O, CO, CO₂, CH₄and N₂with an absolute pressure up to 1.5 bars and a total flow-rate of 700 Nl/min
• an installed internal cyclone should decrease the amount of solid losses, followed by an external cyclone and two dust-filter units