The vacuum aluminothermic reduction of the mixture of calcined magnesite and calcined dolomite was studied. An isothermal reduction method satisfying the vacuum aluminothermic reduction was proposed. The experiments were carried out at 4 Pa. The results indicate that the reduction rate is increased with increasing temperature, content of aluminum and pellet forming pressure. The XRD patterns of pellets at different reduction stages confirm that the reduction process can be roughly classified into three stages：the formation of MgAl2O4, and Ca12Al14O33 phases;the phase transformation from MgAl2O4 and C12A7 to CaAl2O4;the formation of CaAl4O7 phase. The experimental data were divided into three parts according to the kinetic models. The apparent activation energies of the three parts were determined to be 98.2, 133.0 and 223.3 kJ/mol, respectively.
The process of aluminothermic reduction of a mixture of calcined dolomite and calcined magnesite had been developed. The mechanism of the process was studied by SEM and EDS. The reduction process was divided into three stages:0≤ηt/ηf≤0.43±0.06, 0.43±0.06≤ηt/ηf≤0.9±0.02 and 0.9±0.02≤ηt/ηf<1, whereηt andηf are the reduction ratio at time t and the final reduction ratio obtained in the experiment at temperature T, respectively. The first stage included the direct reaction between calcined dolomite or calcined magnesite and Al with 12CaO·7Al2O3 and MgO·Al2O3 as products. The reaction rate depended on the chemical reaction. The CA phase was mainly produced in the second stage and the overall reaction rate was determined by both the diffusion of Ca2+ with molten Al and the chemical reaction. The CA2 phase was mainly produced in the third stage and the reaction process was controlled by the diffusion of Ca2+.
