The huge consumption of iron ores in China has attracted much attention to utilizing low grade complex iron resources, such as high-aluminum hematite-limonite ore, which is a refractory resource and difficult to upgrade by traditional physical concentration processes due to the superfine size and close dissemination of iron minerals with gangue minerals. An innovative technology for a high temperature reduction-magnetic separation process was studied to upgrade a high-aluminum iron ore assaying 41.92% Fe_total, 13.74% Al₂O₃ and 13.96% SiO₂. The optimized results show that the final metal iron powder, assaying 90.46% Fe_total, was manufactured at an overall iron recovery of 90.25% under conditions as follows: balling the high aluminum iron ore with 15% coal blended and at 0.3 basicity, reducing the dried pellets at 1350 °C for 25 min with a total C/Fe mass ratio of 1.0, grinding the reduced pellets up to 95%, passing at 0.074 mm and magnetically separating the ground product in a Davis Tube at a 0.10-T magnetic field intensity. The metal iron powder can be used as the burden for an electric arc furnace (EAF). Meanwhile, the nonmagnetic tailing is suitable to produce ceramic, which mainly consists of anorthite and corundum. An efficient way has been found to utilize high-aluminum iron resources.

How to utilize low grade complex iron resources is an issue that has attracted much attention due to the continuous and huge consumption of iron ores in China. High-aluminum iron ore is a refractory resource and is difficult to upgrade by separating iron and alumina. An innovative technology involving synergistic reducing and synergistic smelting a high-aluminum iron ore containing 41.92% Fe_total, 13.74% Al₂O_3, and 13.96% SiO₂ with a high-manganese iron ore assaying 9.24% Mn_total is proposed. The synergistic reduction process is presented and its enhancing mechanism is discussed. The results show that the generation of hercynite (FeAl₂O₄) and fayalite (Fe₂SiO₄) leads to a low metallization degree of 66.49% of the high-aluminum iron ore. Over 90% of the metallization degree is obtained by synergistic reducing with 60% of the high-manganese iron ore. The mechanism of synergistic reduction can be described as follows: MnO from the high-manganese ore chemically combines with Fe₂SiO₄ and FeAl₂O₄ to generate Mn₂SiO₄, MnAl₂O₄ and FeO, resulting in higher activity of FeO, which can be reduced to Fe in a CO atmosphere. The main products of the synergistic reduction process consist of Fe, Mn₂SiO_4, and MnAl₂O₄.

The research of smelting low ferronickel from pre-concentrate nickel-iron ore with 2.76 % Ni and 38.00 % Fe_total was carried out to find an effective way for stainless steel enterprises to use the low-nickel laterite reasonable. The results show that Ni and Fe both have a certain degree of enrichment, and impurities and harm elements have different degrees of reduction after pre-concentration of nickel-iron ore. Most valuable metal did not compound with impurities which greatly accelerated the speed and extent of melt separation reduction. Good alloy of 6.58 % Ni with the overall recoveries of 93.38 % and 89.95 % Fe_total with the overall recoveries of 89.57 % was manufactured under the following conditions: 10 % coke, 1.0 binary basicity, 18 % MgO and 3 % Al₂O₃ in slag, melting at 1,550 °C for 10 min. The product can be used for the feed of producing stainless steel.

The granulation behaviour of specularite fines which possess poor ballability was studied with limonite fines as a function of nuclei particles and adhering fines. The results show that the permeability of granules deteriorated as the ratio of specularite fines increased in the mixture, and the optimal granulation moisture content also decreased. The granulation kinetics results demonstrate that the adhering load of specularite fines increased rapidly within 3 minutes and then levelled off. With increasing specularite fines ratio, the adhering rate accelerated but the granulation duration needed to be longer to reach adhering balance. The microstructure of granule quasi-particles indicates that the fine limonite particles act as binders to bond together the specularite particles which are dispersed in the adhering layers. This can improve the adhering strength of the granules. Hence, the granulation behaviour of specularite fines can be improved by blending them with fine limonite ores which have high adhering capabilities.