Alexandria Engineering Journal (2022) 61, 3215–3228

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Alexandria University

Alexandria Engineering Journal

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Improving the rotary kiln-electric furnace process

for ferronickel production: Data analytics-based
assessment of dust insufflation into the rotary kiln
flame
Johanna M. Romero a, Yuleisy S. Pardo a, Maricel Parra a, Andy De J. Castillo a,
Heriberto Maury a, Lesme Corredor b, Iván Sánchez c, Bernardo Rueda c,
Arturo Gonzalez-Quiroga b,*

a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla 080001, Colombia
b
UREMA Research Unit, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla 080001, Colombia
c
Cerro Matoso S.A, Montelı´bano, Colombia

Received 30 April 2021; revised 24 June 2021; accepted 14 August 2021

Available online 26 August 2021

KEYWORDS Abstract Ferronickel contains 60–80 wt% Fe and 40–20 wt% Ni and is a feedstock for manufac-
Nickel laterite; turing stainless steel and other ferrous alloys. The primary pyrometallurgical route to produce fer-
Calcination; ronickel from laterite nickel ores is the Rotary Kiln-Electric Furnace (RKEF) process. In the
Reduction; RKEF process, minerals undergo calcination and partial reduction in a rotary kiln. Large amounts
Agglomeration; of mineral dust leave the kiln entrained in flue gases. Dust insufflation is a potential solution in
Machine learning; which dust particles enter directly into the burner flame. The aim is that the insufflated dust softens,
Data handling agglomerates, and finally joins the minerals stream that goes into the electric furnace. We applied
data analytics techniques to a 1-year operation database to assess the operation before and after
dust insufflation in an industrial rotary kiln furnace. Bootstrapping revealed statistically significant
differences in the operation with and without dust insufflation. Principal Component Analysis
(PCA) and k-means clustering were used as exploratory techniques. PCA showed subsets of vari-
ables that significantly influence the dataset variance, and k-means allowed distinguishing operation
conditions for dust insufflation with encouraging results for the calcine-to-fresh mineral and the
natural gas-to-calcine ratios. These results pave the way towards successfully implementing dust
insufflation in the RKEF process.
Ó 2021 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier BV on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria
University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: arturoq@uninorte.edu.co (A. Gonzalez-Quiroga).
Peer review under responsibility of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2021.08.036
1110-0168 Ó 2021 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier BV on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
3216
Nomenclature and notation
ANN artificial neural network
ANFIS artificial neuro-fuzzy inference system
ARIMA autoregressive integrated moving average
Dc cook’s distance
EWMA exponential weighted moving average
KPI key performance index
MLR multiple linear regression
MNAR missing-not-at-random
MRT mean residence time
MSE mean squared error
MWW Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test
NaN not a number
P number of coefficients in the regression model for
the Cook’s distance
PC principal component
1. Introduction
Ferronickel, an alloy containing 20–40 wt% nickel and 60–
80 wt% iron, is essential to manufacture stainless steel and
other alloys [1,2]. Ferronickel is vital to society’s welfare, but
its production is energy-intensive and results in significant
environmental impact. The production of ferronickel from
laterite nickel ores is mainly carried out via the Rotary Kiln-
Electric Furnace (RKEF) process [3,4]. One of the main con-
cerns in the RKEF process is the dust entrained in flue gases
from the rotary kiln, which amounts to around 7.0 wt% of
the incoming fresh mineral [5]. Dust insufflation is a dust recy-
cling and reuse technique implemented in the cement industry
[6]. However, dust insufflation remains little explored in the
ferronickel RKEF process. Dust insufflation has led to reduc-
tions of up to 50% in NOx emission [7] and significant energy
savings [6]. Other dust recovery techniques applied in pyromet-
allurgical processes are pelletizing and submerged injection
[8,9]. This work uses data analytics techniques to gain insight
into the operation before and after dust insufflation in the
rotary kiln furnace of a 180 t h
1 RKEF ferronickel produc-
tion process.
The RKEF process was first applied commercially to treat
New Caledonian ore in the late 19th century [3]. In general, the
literature establishes three stages in the RKEF process
[1,4,10,11]: I) drying or preheating in a rotary dryer, II) calci-
nation and partial reduction in a rotary kiln, and III) smelting
in an electric arc furnace. The RKEF process is quite mature
and well established, has high production efficiency, and shows
strong adaptability to the incoming ore. On the other hand,
high energy consumption and the generation of large amounts
of by-products such as dust and slag are its disadvantages [3,4].
There are three main physicochemical transformations in
the rotary kiln furnace. The first one is the evaporation of free
moisture. Then the thermal dissociation and removal of the
chemically-bound water, also known as calcination. Third,
partial removal of oxygen from iron and nickel oxides via
reduction reactions with CO [1]. Natural gas combustion at
the outlet (hot-end) of the furnace provides the energy to raise
the mineral temperature to the point required for drying, cal-
cination, and reduction [12]. When the minerals bed reaches
J.M. Romero et al.
PCA principal component analysis
PCR principal component regression
PLS partial least squares
R2 coefficient of determination
RKEF rotary kiln-electric furnace
SVD single value decomposition
SVM support vector machine
y original observations
ys filtered observations using moving average filter
Ybj value of an estimate with all observations of the
dataset included
YbjðiÞ value when the observation i is omitted
wt weight percentage
a smoothing coefficient for moving average filter
about 700 °C, the calcination begins. During calcination, min-
erals dissociate into oxides releasing water, as indicated by
reactions such as R1 and R2 [1].
2FeOOH ! Fe2 O3 þ H2 O ðR1Þ
Ni3 Mg3 Si4 O10 ðOHÞ8 ! 3NiO þ 3MgO þ 4SiO2 þ 4H2 O
ðR2Þ
R1 and R2 represent the dehydroxylation of goethite and
serpentine, respectively. Then, (partial) reduction starts, where
oxygen is (partially) removed from nickel and iron oxides by
CO from coal gasification [1,4]. The predominant reduction
reactions are given by R3-R5 [1,13]. The calcined and partially
reduced mineral, referred to as calcine from now on, exits the
rotary kiln at a temperature of 800–900 °C [1,11]. Up to 40%
of the nickel reduces to metallic nickel [1,13], and about 5% of
the iron reduces to metallic iron [1,10].
NiO þ CO ! CO2 þ Ni ðR3Þ
Fe2 O3 þ CO ! CO2 þ 2FeO ðR4Þ
C þ CO2 ! 2CO ðR5Þ
Dust recycling has been implemented in pyrometallurgical
processes such as cement, iron, and steel production. Simula-
tions of a rotary kiln furnace for clinker production showed
the impact of dust injection on the flame and the temperature
profile [14]. Results indicate risks of unstable flame and a 40 °C
decrease in the temperature profile. Models were also applied
to assess the effectiveness of various NOx control techniques
on three Lafarge kilns [7]. One of these kilns operated with
dust insufflation. Dust insufflation reduced flame temperature
and, consequently, NOx emissions. These results indicate that
cement kiln dust takes a significant amount of heat from the
flame as it increases in temperature and completes calcination.
On the other hand, Lou et al. [15] successfully decreased the
smelting temperature and energy consumption by controlling
the slag formation in a large-scale ferronickel production plant
with four RKEF lines. With quaternary basicity of 0.61 and
12.5 wt% FeO content, they decreased the viscosity of the slag,
thus lowering the required smelting temperature by 86 °C. An
Improving the rotary kiln-electric furnace process for ferronickel production:
invention by Darien et al. [16] presents a system for dust injec-
tion that uses oxygen-enriched air for clinker production.
Increasing oxygen concentration allowed faster heating and
processing of the dust without quenching the flame or produc-
ing excessive CO emission. Likewise, Mayotte and Eleazer [17]
present an invention that uses oxygen enrichment in a rotary
kiln with dust insufflation. Oxygen injection allowed maintain-
ing a proper flame geometry, thus counteracting ignition delay
or quenching. On the other hand, Tzevelekou et al. [8] pro-
posed recycling nickeliferous rotary kiln dust by direct
reduction-smelting in an arc furnace. NiO in the slag was less
than 0.03 wt%, indicating high Ni recovery. Finally, a review
of dust injection techniques in iron and steel production and
their application results is presented by Senk et al. [18].
The use of data analytics tools for understanding and con-
trolling industrial processes has boomed, generally using large
datasets. Clustering methods and principal component analy-
sis (PCA) are adequate for the exploratory analysis of data
[19]. A model with a hybrid approach including clustering,
artificial neural networks (ANN), and support vector machine
(SVM) classification allows predicting short-term energy con-
sumption in loads sensitive to meteorological conditions, as
presented by Torabi et al. [20]. This approach resulted in
higher precision compared to existing models. A method based
on integrating PCA and decision trees was proposed by Sun
et al. [21] to diagnose rotating machine failures. The proposed
method has greater precision and requires less training than
the back-propagation ANN.
On the other hand, a study [22] compares the performance
of ANN, multiple linear regression (MLR), and autoregressive
integrated moving average (ARIMA) for predicting flame tem-
perature in a blast furnace. This study contrasted its results
against data from three months of operation and found that
ANN presented a better performance to optimize furnace effi-
ciency and stability. Similarly, a blast furnace study [23] was
carried out to model the permeability index. Models consisted
Fig. 1 Pre-processing, inference, and exploratory analysis procedures used to assess the rotary kiln operation before and after dust
insufflation and to understand the process variables.
3217
of ANN, the adaptive neural fuzzy inference system (ANFIS),
and ARIMA. They measured model performance using the
coefficient of determination (R2) and the mean square error
(MSE), ANFIS showing the best results. These studies show
the relevance and effectiveness of data analytics techniques
within the industrial sector.
Current sustainable policies represent a motivation for high
energy-consuming industries, such as ferronickel production,
to innovate in their process by reducing energy consumption
and pollutant emissions. Dust insufflation in the rotary kiln
furnace can potentially reduce energy consumption and envi-
ronmental impacts. The benefits of dust insufflation in the
RKEF process remain unexplored and represent the knowl-
edge gap addressed here. This work uses operation data from
a rotary kiln furnace of an RKEF industrial process before
and after dust insufflation. A significant improvement in cal-
cine production, and possible energy savings were found due
to the dust insufflation technology. An exploratory analysis
of the data with dust insufflation was performed to understand
better the new process behavior, variance, and operating
conditions.
2. Methods
This paper applies data analytics to gain insight into the oper-
ation of an industrial rotary kiln furnace before and after dust
insufflation. The flowsheet in Fig. 1 summarizes the procedures
for data pre-processing, measurement of the performance
enhancement, and exploratory analysis.
2.1. Data description and pre-processing
The industrial plant studied here uses two kilns, referred to as
Kiln 1 and Kiln 2. A schematic of the process is shown in
Fig. 2a. Flue gases leave the kiln drawn by a fan located in
3218 J.M. Romero et al.

Fig. 2 (a) Schematic diagram of the process and flue gas treatment of the two rotary kilns. Flue gases from the combustion of natural gas
in Kiln 1 pass through cyclones and a scrubber to remove particulate material. Flue gases from Kiln 2 pass through an electrostatic
precipitator to removed dust. (b) Schematic diagram of Kiln 1. Kiln 1 is 185 m long, 6.1 m in diameter, is positioned at a 2.29° inclination
angle, and its nominal rotational velocity amounts to 1.1 revolutions per minute (0.115 rad s
1).

the smokestack. After leaving rotary Kiln 1, flue gases pass

Table 1 Ranges of main operation variables at the nominal
through a cyclone stage and then through a scrubber to
operating condition of rotary Kiln 1 according to operating
remove entrained dust. Dust recovered in the cyclones is fed
manuals and historical data.
back to the Kiln 1 entrance. Table 1 summarizes the typical
operating condition of Kiln 1. In rotary Kiln 2, flue gases pass Stream Value Units
through an electrostatic precipitator to remove dust. Fines Fresh mineral 170–180 th
1
recovered from the scrubber and the electrostatic precipitator Reductant coal 8–10 th
1
are mixed and extruded to make pellets. Pellets contain around Natural gas 118–140 Nm3 min
1
25 wt% moisture and are fed back to Kiln 2 entrance. Primary air 105–140 m3 min
1
In the rotary kilns, drying, calcination, and (partial) reduc- Secondary air 1370–1550 m3 min
1
tion occur in a process in series, as illustrated in Fig. 2b. After
passing through a rotary dryer, the mineral enters the rotary
kiln with moisture content in the range of 9.0–9.8 wt%. In
what follows, we refer to the minerals stream leaving the rotary Recently, the company undertook a dust insufflation pro-
dryer as the fresh mineral. On a dry basis, the fresh mineral ject. The first part consists of insufflating a fraction of the dust
mainly contains Fe2O3 (18.0 wt%), NiO (2.15 wt%), and from Kiln 2 recovered at the electrostatic precipitator. The
MgO (22 wt%), and its temperature amounts to approximately dust is insufflated at the hot end of Kiln 1, as indicated by
50 °C. The reducing agent is bituminous coal with a 30–40 wt the red dash-dot-dot line in Fig. 2a. The dust insufflation sys-
% volatile content and 18–25 wt% moisture. Table 2 lists the tem uses a custom-designed lance to feed the fines right into
distance from each thermocouple to the kiln inlet. the flame, as depicted in Fig. 3. A fraction of the injected dust
Improving the rotary kiln-electric furnace process for ferronickel production: 3219

reflect the main objectives of the dust insufflation project.

Table 2 Positions of each thermocouple in the rotary kiln
KPI3 and KPI4 evaluate other effects indirectly related to dust
furnace.
insufflation.
Distance from the kiln inlet, m Thermocouple All invalid measurements, such as infinity values, not-a-
Mineral number (NaN), or non-physical values, were ruled out. The
65 Tm1 datasets used here contained subsets of missing-not-at-
67 Tm2 random (MNAR) values. Please refer to Xu et al. (2015) [24]
70 Tm3 for further details on missing data classification. The percent-
78 Tm4 age of missing data for the complete dataset was 0.12%.
85 Tm5 Rather than scattered around the dataset, NaNs were consec-
94 Tm6
utive. So instead of choosing any data imputation methodol-
104 Tm7
112 Tm8
ogy, rows containing NaNs were deleted. The method works
131 Tm9 well for large data sets because it does not reduce statistical
140 Tm10 power nor induces bias in parameter estimation [25]. Using
147 Tm11 imputation methods such as interpolation and linear regres-
158 Tm12 sion could induce bias if the missing data show a pattern.
165 Tm13 The mass flow rate of fines was an additional variable in the
177 Tm14 dataset after dust insufflation. This variable presents its own
182 Tm15 dynamics because, during the studied period, the operation
Gases with fines injection was still being stabilized. Therefore, this
0 Tg1
variable was not considered during NaNs removal.
70 Tg2
The company provided a detailed report, including the
79 Tg3
94 Tg4
description, starting date, and duration of all the events that
104 Tg5 happened in the plant during the studied period. This report
112 Tg6 allowed removing measurements corresponding to scheduled
and unscheduled plant shutdowns. For the correct extraction
of shutdowns, the effect of each event on the operation was
verified. Upper and lower limits were established for the fresh
could soften and agglomerate in the burner flame. The aim is mineral flow, natural gas, secondary air, and calcine tempera-
to incorporate dust into the calcine, thus increasing the ture. Data was retained if the variables remained inside these
calcine-to-fresh mineral ratio while reducing natural gas con- limits during the declared events. If the variables crossed one
sumption. Dust insufflation can potentially lead to fines of the limits during the declared event, data was removed from
entrainment rates lower than that with pellets. Compared with the dataset. A detailed explanation of this procedure is avail-
pelletizing, dust insufflation saves water and energy (natural able as Supporting Information.
gas) as no extra moisture is fed to the furnace with the dust. Outliers were deleted considering the whole dataset rather
For this study, the dataset contains measurements from than considering only a few variables independently. The mul-
January 1st, 2020, to December 31st, 2020. Dust injection tivariate outliers are not extreme values for a variable but
started on July 9th. A total of 36 variables were registered, extreme values for a combination of variables [26]. Outliers
including the temperatures described in Fig. 2b and Table 2. have effects on measures of position or dispersion and the cor-
Table 3 lists the remaining variables available for this study. relations between variables. Cook’s distance measures how
Table 4 summarizes four key performance indexes (KPI) much the ith observation influences a parameter estimation
used to compare the operation before and after dust insuffla- when it is removed from a dataset. Cook’s distance was used
tion. Here we refer to the calcined partially reduced mineral in this research to identify multivariate outliers. A high cook’s
leaving the rotary kiln furnace as calcine. KPI1 and KPI2 distance means that the observation has a considerable weight

Fig. 3 Schematic representation of the dust insufflation system. Fines are recovered via an electrostatic precipitator and pneumatically
conveyed to the dust injection lance. A custom-designed lance delivers the fines into the burner flame.
3220 J.M. Romero et al.

Table 3 Process variables considered here to assess the effect of dust insufflation into an industrial rotary kiln furnace for ferronickel
production via the RKEF process.
N Variable description Name N Variable Name
1 Fresh mineral (partially dried) mass flow rate Ore 9 Nickel concentration in fresh mineral Ni.i
2 Coal mass flow rate Coal 10 Sum of other elements concentration in fresh mineral slag.i
3 Calcine mass flow rate cal 11 Iron concentration in the calcine Fe.o
4 Natural gas volumetric flow rate Gas 12 Nickel concentration in the calcine Ni.o
5 Injected dust mass flow rate Inj 13 Sum of other elements concentration in the calcine slag.o
6 Primary air volumetric flow rate PrimAir 14 Moisture content of fresh mineral minmoist
7 Secondary air volumetric flow rate SecAir 15 Pressure at the hot end of the kiln. CalP
8 Iron concentration in fresh mineral Fe.i

Table 4 Key performance indexes (KPI) to compare the operation before and after dust insufflation.
Name Description Units
KPI1 Calcine-to-fresh mineral ratio Dimensionless
KPI2 Natural gas-to-calcine ratio Nm3 t
1
KPI3 Air (primary + secondary)-to-natural gas ratio Dimensionless
KPI4 Coal-to-calcine mass ratio Dimensionless

in the estimation, and it can be called an influencing observa- cients in the regression model, and MSE is the mean squared
tion. Eq (1) gives Cook’s distance for the ith observation (Dci ). error.
Pn  2 The exponential weighted moving average (EWMA) was
b b
j¼1 Y j
Y jðiÞ used as a noise removal method to smooth data fluctuations.
D ci ¼ ð1Þ This method was applied to all studied variables with a sliding
P  MSE
window of four samples, corresponding to two operation
Symbol Y bj represents the value of the estimate with
hours. Note that the EWMA filter emphasizes the older data
all observations included, Y bjðiÞ corresponds to the value cumulative effect, i.e., places less importance on current data
when the observation i is omitted, P is the number of coeffi- points. Accordingly, the weighting for each older data point

Fig. 4 Moving average filter applied to the fresh mineral mass flow in the rotary kiln before the dust insufflation.
Improving the rotary kiln-electric furnace process for ferronickel production:
decreases exponentially [27]. For an instant t, the EWMA filter
is given by Eq. (2).
yðstÞ ¼ ayðst
1Þ þ ð1
aÞyðtÞ ð2Þ
ðtÞ
where y is the original observation for the k instant and yðstÞ
is
computed using the previous filtered value, yðst
1Þ . Symbol a
represents a smoothing coefficient and varies between zero
and one. Fig. 4 shows the result of applying the EWMA filter
to one of the variables: ore mass flow rate entering the rotary
kiln.
For steady-state extraction, we used the methodology pro-
posed by Simon and Litt [28], later applied by Kummar et al.
[29]. This algorithm uses the standard deviation to classify data
in a steady- or transient state. The data is divided into 6-
sample windows, corresponding to three hours of operation.
Tree hours is the mean residence time (MRT) of the solids in
the rotary kiln according to Seaman’s model [30]. If the stan-
dard deviation of a data window is less than two reference
standard deviations, this window is assumed to be at a
steady-state. Only a group of relevant variables were used to
compare standard deviations for steady-state extraction: mass
flow rate of fresh mineral and natural gas volumetric flow rate.
Further details on the steady-state extraction algorithm are
available as Supporting Information. Fig. 5 shows results for
steady-state extraction before and after dust insufflation.
2.2. Bootstrapping
For most of the variables in the dataset, the normality assump-
tion is not met. For this reason, parametric tests such as the t-
Fig. 5 Steady-state extraction before dust insufflation for the mass flow rate fresh mineral (a and c) and natural gas volumetric flow rate
(b and d).
3221
test are not adequate. Likewise, the conditions of some non-
parametric tests were evaluated, like the Mann-Whitney-
Wilcoxon (MWW) test for independent samples, also called
Wilcoxon rank-sum test or Mann-Whitney U test [31]. This
test does not require normally distributed data; however, it
assumes equal distributions of the two studied groups, and
therefore, it is sensitive to heteroscedasticity [31]. That is
why the MWW test was also discarded. In this research, the
bootstrapping method was used to compare the means. It is
similar to the randomization test, but the latter applies when
the randomness is caused by allocating the data in different
groups. In contrast, bootstrapping applies when the random-
ness is due to the sampling procedure [32]. In this work, the
P-value correction proposed by Davison and Hinkley was used
[33,34].
2.3. Principal component analysis
The principal component analysis (PCA) is a multivariate
analysis method that projects the data matrix to a lower-
dimensional space [35] proposed initially by [36]. PCA is an
unsupervised learning method and works for exploratory anal-
ysis of data and data visualization. This method converts the
correlations or lack thereof into a two-dimension plot. Fur-
thermore, the generated principal components (PCs) are suit-
able for principal component regression (PCR), partial least
squares (PLS), and other supervised learning methods. This
method uses Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) to obtain
the set of new dimensions. A complete explanation of the
method can be found in [37].
3222 J.M. Romero et al.

2.4. k-means clustering dust insufflation. Fig. 6a shows the difference in the calcine-
to-fresh mineral ratio with and without dust insufflation,
The k-means method classifies data into smaller groups or reflecting an increase. This result is a first indication that dust
clusters proposed by Hartigan and Wong algorithm [38]. A insufflation promotes the incorporation of dust into the
cluster is a group where all samples feature some similarity calcine.
and are different from samples in another cluster. This algo- xKPI2 represents the ratio between natural gas volumetric
rithm owes its popularity to its simplicity, robustness, and effi- flow rate and calcine mass flow rate. The means difference
cient implementation [38]. For this unsupervised learning before and after dust insufflation for KPI2 was
1.431. The
method, k is the number of clusters. The first step is to define P-value for the bootstrapping test was 1  10
4 indicating a
the number of clusters and then locate random centroids for statistically significant difference between the compared data-
those clusters. Then, assign to each centroid the data closest sets. As inferred from Fig. 6b, there was a decrease in the nat-
to it. Finally, recalculate the centroids with the average of each ural gas-to-calcine ratio. According to these results, dust
cluster. These steps repeat until the cluster assignments stop insufflation can potentially lead to energy savings in the rotary
changing or reaching the maximum number of iterations. kiln. The partially calcined and dried dust requires lower
Elbow and silhouette methods were used to determine the opti- energy for calcination and reduction.
mum value for k. The bootstrapping method also showed a significant differ-
ence before and after dust insufflation for KPI3, i.e., the air-to-
3. Results and discussion natural gas volumetric flow ratio. A decrease in KPI3 after
dust insufflation is evident (Fig. 6c). By reducing the airflow
entering the furnace, the superficial velocity and the dragging
The comparison of results for the datasets before and after
of fines also decrease. This outcome could lead to enhanced
dust insufflation revealed statistical differences. Results show
conditions for incorporating the agglomerated dust into the
salient differences in material streams and mineral tempera-
calcine stream. Note that this hypothesis is consistent with
tures. Likewise, we identified the groups of variables contribut-
the results for KPI1.
ing the most to the total variance after dust insufflation. After
On the other hand, the distributions for KPI4, i.e., the coal-
dust insufflation, three main operating conditions were distin-
to-calcine mass flow rate ratio, do not show a significant
guished using k-means clustering, thus gaining insight into the
change in shape and scattering before and after dust insuffla-
improved process. One of these operating conditions showed
tion (Fig. 6d). Therefore, using only the bootstrapping results
encouraging results in terms of the KPIs defined in Table 4.
to compare this indicator is correct. Bootstrapping showed a
positive difference between before and after dust insufflation
3.1. Performance enhancement with dust insufflation (Table 5).
The thermocouple Tm15 is located at 3 m from the end of the
The reader is referred to the Supporting Information to see the rotary kiln. Fig. 6f shows a different shape for the distribution
normality and bootstrap distribution plots for all the relevant of this variable. For this temperature, when analyzed after the
variables studied in this section. Table 5 summarizes the means intervention, there are two separated operating conditions.
difference of these variables and the P values from the boot- One of them coincides with the values it had before dust insuf-
strapping test. The means difference for KPI1 is 0.053, which flation, but the other has considerably higher values. This tem-
is a value practically outside of the bootstrapping distribution perature could be associated with calcine quality and with the
(S3 1 in the Supporting Information). For this mean differ- extent of reduction reactions. Li (1999) [39] shows that for tem-
ence, a P-value of 1  10
4 was obtained, which allows reject- peratures in the range of 710–740 °C, when the CO/CO2 ratio
ing the null hypothesis. This result indicates a statistically falls between 2 and 3, the nickel recovery achieves the maxi-
significant difference in the dataset’s values before and after mum values. Therefore, although this temperature shows a sta-
tistically significant change, it stays within a range [39] that
would not compromise calcine quality. This temperature
Table 5 Bootstrapping results for the most relevant variables impacts energy consumption for the next stage in ferronickel
and the key performance indexes (KPIs). P-values were production, corresponding to the smelting-arc furnace. The
calculated using Eq. 3. increase in the calcine temperature at the end of the rotary kiln
could reduce energy consumption in the electric arc furnace
KPI/Variable Mean difference Relative change (%) P-value
[11]. The electric furnace smelting stage requires high energy
KPI1 0.053 6.31 0.0001 consumption. In fact, some techniques such as controlling slag
KPI2
1.431
2.65 0.0001 formation have been evaluated to reduce energy consumption
KPI3
0.086
0.71 0.0001
in ferronickel production [15].
KPI4 0.005 8.04 0.0001
Fresh mineral
2.413
1.38 0.0001
Tm13 is the closest thermocouple to the flame; therefore, it
Coal 1.178 13.39 0.0001 registers the highest mineral temperatures. The means differ-
Gas 2.949 2.24 0.0001 ence for Tm13 was 21.9 °C, and the P-value from the bootstrap-
Calcine 7.042 4.80 0.0001 ping test was 1  10
4 reflecting a statistically significant
Primary air 1.786 1.34 0.0001 difference for the means of the variables. This result indicates
Secondary air 22.280 1.53 0.0001 that the lateritic mineral possibly achieved higher temperatures
Tm13 21.867 2.15 0.0001 after dust insufflation. Fig. 6e shows different peaks for the
Tm15 9.007 1.23 0.0001 distributions before and after dust insufflation. Besides, a
Tg6 13.518 1.48 0.0001
bimodal distribution is evident after dust insufflation. Two dif-
Improving the rotary kiln-electric furnace process for ferronickel production: 3223

Fig. 6 Density probability plot and box plot with data points for (a) the calcine-to-fresh mineral ratio (KPI1), (b) natural gas-to-calcine
ratio (KPI2), (c) air (primary + secondary)-to-natural gas ratio (KPI3), (d) coal-to-calcine mass ratio (KPI4), (e) Tm13 and (f) Tm15 . Fig. 2b
and Table 2 give the position of thermocouples in the rotary kiln.

ferent groups are obtained from the bimodal distribution,
which could correspond to two different operating scenarios.
The temperature for one of these scenarios is considerably
higher than the temperature without dust insufflation. This
increase in the maximum mineral temperature could positively
contribute to the reduction process in the rotary kiln. How-
ever, it could also lead to crusts due to the sintering of metal
particles.
On the other hand, at temperatures above 900 °C, nickel
and iron oxides fuse with SiO2, forming non-reactive silicates
[1]. These are low melting point complex compounds, which
gradually deposit on the refractory surface of the rotary kiln
[40,41]. This phenomenon is known as accretion or ring forma-
tion. Ring formation can also be due to the presence of
carbon-containing fines at high temperatures (1200–1400 °C)
[41,42]. Although, in this case, the ore does not reach temper-
atures above 1100 °C, the fines are expected to reach higher
temperatures due to their passage through the flame. The fines
injected into the burner have residual carbon (1% wt. approx-
imately), which is necessary to reduce the oxides. Therefore,
the dust injection process may promote the formation of rings
in the reduction zone of the rotary kiln.
The region between 50 m and 150 m in length of the furnace
does not show evidence of a noticeable change in the temper-
ature profile before and after dust insufflation, as shown in
Fig. 7. Unstable combustion and mineral cooling were
reported for a clinker rotary kiln after dust insufflation [6].
Here, the dust-to-calcine mass ratio did not exceed 0.25, and
the minerals and gases temperature profiles before and after
dust insufflation resemble each other.
In the temperature region 800 °C-880 °C, there are notice-
able differences between the temperature averages before and
3224 J.M. Romero et al.

Fig. 7 Mineral and gasses temperature profiles before and after dust insufflation. See Table 2 for the location of the thermocouples.
Upper and lower limits for the temperature bands are defined with the standard deviation of each thermocouple. The standard deviation
of Tm13 (at 165 m from the kiln entrance) is three times higher for the case with dust insufflation.

after dust insufflation. Besides, the temperature in this range is Results show a first PC (PC1) that explains 42% of the vari-
the only one that is lower for the scenario with dust insuffla- ance and a second PC (PC2) that accounts for 9.5% of the
tion. Kinetic studies on the thermal decomposition of lateritic variance. The first ten PCs explain 85.9% of the variance.
minerals identify an exothermic recrystallization event in this Table 6 shows the variables associated with PC1 and PC2.
temperature region [43–46]. Therefore, there is no mass loss PC1 includes the highest temperatures for the gasses and inter-
but rather a crystalline rearrangement. Using thermogravimet- mediate temperatures for the mineral. On the other hand, PC2
ric analysis (DTA-TG), published studies [43–46] found 876, also includes minerals concentration in the calcine and fresh
830, 821, and 820 °C, as the temperatures for the exothermic mineral, secondary air volumetric flow rate, and some of the
recrystallization event. kiln’s highest temperatures. These variables explain a signifi-
cant share of dataset variability. PC3 and PC4 are linear com-
3.2. Exploratory analysis and operating conditions binations of the remaining temperatures, gas volumetric flow
rate, mass flow rates of fresh mineral, insufflated dust and coal,
PCA allowed identifying the two components that better and the primary air volumetric flow rate.
explain the variance of the after-dust-insufflation dataset. Fig. 8 illustrates the contribution of each variable to the
PCs. Positively correlated variables point in the same direc-
tion, and negatively correlated variables point in opposite
Table 6 Contributions of each variable to the first (PC1) and directions. Only the variables with the highest contribution
second (PC2) principal components. to PC1 and PC2 appear in Fig. 8a and Fig. 8b, respectively.
All temperatures in the chart point to the left, but contrary
PC1 PC2
to the rest, Tm10 , Tm13 , Tm14 and Tm15 point to the top of the
Variable Contribution, % Variable Contribution, % chart. Tm7 and Tm13 are essentially uncorrelated, while Tm14
Tm4 5.79 Ni:o 9.70 and Tm15 reflect a similar result. These results are consistent
Tg3 5.66 Tm15 9.03 with the relative distance between these thermocouples. Con-
Tm8 5.63 Tm14 7.91 versely, the correlation between Tm13 and Tm15 , much closer
Tm3 5.63 Feo 7.61 thermocouples, is 0.395. On the other hand, the correlation
Tg4 5.55 SecAir 6.95 between Tm8 and Tg6 located at the same distance from the kiln
Tg2 5.48 Tm13 6.90
furnace entrance, amounts to 0.836.
Tm5 5.34 Tm7 4.86
Similarly, steady-state KPIs data after dust insufflation
Tm1 5.23 slagi 4.48
Tg6 5.20 Slago 4.39 allowed identifying different operating conditions. Graphical
Tg5 5.13 Tm10 3.82 exploratory analysis cast light on the difference between the
generated clusters. Within the set of variables studied here,
Improving the rotary kiln-electric furnace process for ferronickel production:
Fig. 8 Contribution of variables to the variance of the after-dust-insufflation dataset for (a) PC1 and (b) PC2. Positively correlated
variables point to the same side. Negatively correlated variables point to opposite sides of the plot. SA: secondary air. Table 2 and Fig. 2
describe gas and mineral temperatures. Table 3 describes the other variables in the figure.
KPIs are those functions that better reflect the impact of dust
insufflation on the rotary kiln operation. Therefore, KPIs were
used in the clustering algorithm instead of the entire dataset.
Three were the optimum number of clusters determined via
the elbow and silhouette methods. These plots are available
for the interested reader as Supporting Information. Fig. 9
shows a graphical representation of the clusters as a function
of PC1 and PC2. Using only the four KPIs in the PCA
method, the explained variance of PC1 and PC2 are 61%
and 28.7%, respectively.
Clusters C1, C2, and C3 contain 411, 233, and 256 samples,
i.e., the three clusters have comparable sizes indicating no clus-
ter of outliers. Table 7 summarizes each cluster content by pro-
viding the minimum, mean, maximum, and standard
deviation. Mean values in C1 are smaller than those in C2
and higher than those in C3, except for the calcine, which
affects KPI1, KPI2, and KPI4. According to the calcine-to-
mineral ratio (KPI1) and the natural gas-to-calcine ratio
(KPI2), C1 is a cluster with promising results.
KPIs data were plotted sequentially in Fig. 10 to verify that
clusters correspond to different operating conditions rather
than random data. Note that at this point, we are working
Fig. 9 Graphical representation of clusters as a function of
principal components PC1 and PC2. Results correspond to the
after-dust-insufflation dataset.
3225
only with steady-state values. For better representation, points
were connected with a dashed line in Fig. 10. Different zones
were evident, indicating three main operating conditions dur-
ing dust insufflation.
The first zone encompasses the first 250 samples, represent-
ing ~ 5 days of operation. In this zone, C2 predominates, with
an average of 0.87 for KPI 1, a value slightly higher C3, but
still lower than C1, which showed averages of 0.85 and 0.93
for KPI1, respectively. The average mass flow rate of insuf-
flated dust for C2 was 3:7th
1 , which is the lowest of the three
clusters. The second zone includes from sample 250 to 750
approximately, representing ~ 11 days of operation. In this
zone, C1 predominates, exhibiting the higher KPI1 and lower
KPI2, with averages of 0.93, 50.9, respectively. Therefore, this
operating condition was the one with the highest efficiency
during the dust injection. The increase in calcine production
is the salient difference, with an increase of 6.31% and
9.07%, compared to C2 and C3, respectively. This operating
condition features the highest mass flow rate of injected dust,
with an average of 6:9th
1 . In the third zone, which goes from
sample 750 to 900, C3 predominates and corresponds to
approximately three operation days. The average KPIs for this
cluster resemble those of C2, with differences no greater than
5%. Within these two clusters, the most different variable is
the mass flow rate of injected dust, being 5:6th
1 and 3:7th
1 for
C3 and C2, respectively.
It is relevant to compare the conditions in C1 and C3, con-
sidering the characteristics of each cluster. Both present a sim-
ilar dust injection rate, and the main operating variables do
not show significant differences either. Despite this, C1 pre-
sents a notable increase in calcine-to-fresh mineral compared
with C3. A plausible explanation for these results is that the
difference in the calcine-to-fresh mineral ratio is not due to
one variable’s effect but to the interaction of several. Uncon-
trolled variables may impact KPI1, such as the angle of injec-
tion of fines or the agglomeration rate. Determining the factors
that explain the difference in KPI1 between C1 and C3 is
beyond this paper’s scope.
To summarize, C2 does not show a significant change with
respect to the operation without dust injection; therefore,
potential benefits are not observed in this operation scenario.
In C1, there is a reduction in the mass flow rate of dust bypass-
ing the cyclones and a noticeable increase in the calcine-to-
3226 J.M. Romero et al.

Table 7 Minimum (Min), mean, maximum (Max), and standard deviation (SD) for data in each cluster. Results correspond to the
after-dust-insufflation dataset.
C1 C2 C3
Min Mean Max SD Min Mean Max SD Min Mean Max SD
Mineral 162.8 171.5 175.1 3.5 165.0 173.9 175.1 2.8 165.0 171.7 175.1 2.7
Coal 9.0 10.1 11.3 0.5 8.4 9.5 10.8 0.4 9.4 10.2 11.5 0.4
Natural gas 128.9 135.6 140.8 2.9 121.6 132.3 137.8 3.3 123.0 134.1 140.3 2.5
Calcine 147.6 159.9 172.6 4.5 132.9 150.4 163.2 5.1 123.8 146.6 157.9 6.0
Injection 0.0 6.9 10.0 2.6 0.0 3.7 8.0 2.1 0.0 5.6 10.0 2.9
KPI1 0.868 0.932 1.007 0.026 0.795 0.865 0.933 0.025 0.707 0.854 0.902 0.035
KPI2 46.9 50.9 54.7 1.4 47.8 52.8 57.9 1.6 51.2 54.9 64.2 2.0
KPI3 11.5 11.9 12.5 0.2 12.0 12.4 13.0 0.2 11.5 11.9 12.7 0.2
KPI4 0.056 0.063 0.071 0.003 0.056 0.064 0.072 0.003 0.065 0.070 0.078 0.002

Fig. 10 Values of (a) the calcine-to-fresh mineral ratio (KPI1), (b) natural gas-to-calcine ratio (KPI2), (c) air (primary + secondary)-to-
natural gas ratio (KPI3) and (d) coal-to-calcine ratio (KPI4) for the different clusters. Results correspond to the after-dust-insufflation
dataset.

fresh mineral ratio. Finally, in C3, the low incorporation of
injected dust is evident, consistent with the KPI1 values and
the increase in dust mass flow rate at the outlet of the cyclones.
Further details on the dust mass balance are available in the
Supporting Information.
4. Conclusions
The benefits of dust insufflation in the RKEF ferronickel pro-
duction process were studied in this paper. We applied the data
analytics techniques bootstrapping, PCA, and k-means cluster-
ing to a one-year operation database from a large-scale rotary
kiln with and without dust insufflation. The data-treatment
process was divided into three stages: pre-processing, infer-
ence, and exploratory analysis. The data distribution and
knowledge about process variables were crucial to choose
proper statistical methods for the pre-processing stage. This
stage started discarding the NaNs and plant shutdowns. Sub-
sequently, we removed multivariable outliers and reduced
noise with the exponential moving average filter. Finally, the
Improving the rotary kiln-electric furnace process for ferronickel production:
steady-state data was extracted for its use in the next stage. In
the inference stage, bootstrapping compared steady-state data
before and after dust insufflation, revealing significant differ-
ences for the operation with and without it. Afterward, PCA
identified sets of variables that account for most of the total
variance of the datasets, and k-means clustered the data after
dust insufflation into three different operating conditions as
an exploratory analysis.
With dust insufflation, the calcine-to-fresh mineral ratio
significantly increased by 6.31%, while the natural gas-to-
calcine ratio significantly decreased by 2.65%. In addition,
the highest temperature of the kiln and the calcine temperature
increased by 21.9 and 9 °C, respectively. A higher calcine tem-
perature represents a potential energy consumption reduction
in the subsequent stage of the electric furnace. A higher min-
eral temperature near the flame could result in an improved
reduction, but at the same time, could compromise the kiln
integrity. The exploratory analysis results demonstrated that
the variables inducing the highest variance to the dataset were
mineral and gasses temperatures, calcine compositions, fresh
mineral and coal mass flow rates, and air volumetric flow rate.
Furthermore, the clustering technique of the exploratory anal-
ysis showed different operating conditions based on the KPIs
that best represent the kiln performance. k-means isolated
the most favorable operating scenario recorded during dust
insufflation, a condition in which insufflated dust was incorpo-
rated into the calcine. These results are the first indication that
dust insufflation into the rotary kiln furnace improves the
RKEF process. However, additional data with dust insuffla-
tion is needed to validate this outcome further.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Johanna M. Romero: Investigation, Software, Data curation.
Yuleisy S. Pardo: Software, Data curation. Maricel Parra:
Software, Data curation. Andy De J. Castillo: Software, Data
curation. Heriberto Maury: Conceptualization, Methodology,
Supervision. Lesme Corredor: Conceptualization, Methodol-
ogy, Supervision. Iván Sánchez: Conceptualization, Methodol-
ogy, Supervision. Bernardo Rueda: Conceptualization,
Methodology, Supervision. Arturo Gonzalez-Quiroga: Supervi-
sion, Investigation.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing
financial interests or personal relationships that could have
appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
The research leading to these results has received funding from
MINCIENCIAS under the project ‘‘Incremento en la Capaci-
dad Operativa y Eficiencia de Producción de CERRO
MATOSO S.A” with contract number 4684-786-66497.
Appendix A. Supplementary material
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aej.2021.08.036.
3227
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