Sintering is an agglomeration process that fuses iron ore fines, fluxes, recycled products, slag-forming elements and coke. The purpose of sintering is to obtain a product with suitable composition, quality and granulometry to be used as burden material in the blast furnace. This process is widely studied and researched in the iron and steelmaking industry. In this context, achieving an adequate sintered product depends on the adequate raw materials supply and the previous stage to the sintering process, granulation. For that reason, in this paper, the granulation process is studied as a consequence of being the source of pre-agglomerated materials for the subsequent sintering process. Thus, the main tests used to the determination of the properties are reviewed as well as the main granulation processes.

Sinter plants process a mixture of iron ore fines, recycled ironmaking products, slag-forming agents and solid fuel (coke) with the finality of obtaining a product with the suitable characteristics (thermal, mechanical, physical, and chemical) for being fed to the blast furnace. With this objective a series of parameters are defined, including the nature and composition of each component of the mixture, and the conditions of the sintering process. Sinter characterization includes chemical and granulometric analysis, determination of the mineral phases in its structure, apart from a series of quality indices that includes reducibility, low temperature degradation, reduction degradation and Tumbler. Operated sinter plants with the maximum productivity are also important with the purpose of obtaining a sinter with uniform composition and quality for facilitating the steady state operation of the blast furnace.