Fe-based amorphous alloys with superior soft-magnetic properties prepared via smelting reduction of high-phosphorus oolitic iron ore

Fe-based amorphous alloys generally suffer from the impurities in industrial raw materials and the high cost of pure raw materials. In this work, a revolutionary way for preparing Fe-based amorphous alloys from the refractory high-phosphorus oolitic iron ore with the combination of smelting reduction and melt-spinning was proposed for the simultaneously utilization of Fe and P elements. By using the smelting reduction, Fe–P alloys with high Fe and P recovery rate of 99% and 92% can be obtained, and the C content in the resultant Fe–P alloys can be accurately tailored by adjusting the C/O ratio. For the implementation of the developed process, the reduced Fe–P alloys with significantly different C content and the corresponding Fe ₈₃P ₃C ₁Si ₂B ₁₁, Fe ₇₆P ₅C _3.8Si _5.7B _9.5 and Fe ₈₀P ₁₀C ₉Si ₁ (at. %) amorphous alloys with close C content were chosen. These resultant alloys all exhibit high AFA, low H _c and high μ _e as well as wide annealing window comparable to that of the alloys prepared with pure raw materials, demonstrating the feasibility of the developed process for energy-saving and resource-friendly production of soft-magnetic materials via smelting reduction of iron ores.