F. Waanders, A. Mulaba-Bafubiandi
May 6, 2005
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Abstract
Mechanical alloying has been, and is still being employed extensively to synthesize a variety of alloy phases. The primary interest is to produce materials for scientific research and technological applications for magnetic recording media and permanent magnetic field devices. In the present investigation however the aim was not to produce a special alloy phases but to prove the viability of the production of iron from naturally occurring hematite, using mechanical alloying. Discard fines from the biggest hematite producer, Kumba Resources, Sishen, South Africa, were obtained and mixed with aluminum powder in the ratio of 25 at.% Al, balance hematite. About 50 g of the hematite‐Al mixture, to be mechanically milled, was dry milled in a planetary ball milling equipment. The milling times varied between 30 min. and 30 hours and samples for Mossbauer spectroscopy, SEM analyses and Malvern sizing were obtained for each milling interval. Milling of the fine hematite with the much coarser Al resulted in a mixtu...