What Are Briquettes Used For? Cold Briquetting Applications by Industry and Material Type

Introduction: Briquettes, an Underrated Industrial Foundation

In modern industrial production, large amounts of fine or powdery materials are generated, such as ore fines, furnace residue, coal dust， 和 coke powder. These fine materials are difficult to recycle directly. They often lead to resource losses and environmental issues, and handling them usually adds significant cost.

Accumulated Metallurgical Powder，waste

冷压块 provides a practical way to turn loose fine materials into stable, high-value agglomerates—briquettes. This article explains what briquettes are, their advantages, and the major industrial applications. It also outlines Jianjie’s technical services to show how cold briquetting delivers measurable gains in efficiency and resource utilization.

What Are Briquettes?

Cold briquettes are solid blocks formed at room temperature without traditional high-temperature sintering. Fine powders or small particles are compacted into pillow-shaped, square, or spherical agglomerates with sufficient strength for handling and furnace use, using mechanical pressure and binders or the material’s natural binding properties.

 Briquetting machines(roller presses)

The core of this technology is the use of briquetting machines(such as roller presses) together with high-performance binders to achieve fast and dense forming.

Core Advantages of Briquetting for Industry

Compared with high-temperature agglomeration methods, cold briquetting offers several key advantages:

• Efficient resource use and circular economy:

It turns industrial waste powders, such as 钢渣, blast furnace dust, and dust by-products, into high-quality raw materials that can be reused directly, significantly improving overall resource efficiency.

• Lower energy consumption and cost:

Unlike sintering that require high heat, briquetting uses minimal energy, reducing fuel or electricity use and lowering production costs.

• Improved production safety and environment:

Agglomerating powders into solid blocks reduces dust, improves air quality in plants and mines, lowers occupational health risks, and makes handling and storage easier.

• Enhanced furnace performance and stability:

Cold briquettes have uniform size and strength, improving airflow and permeability when used in blast furnaces or converters which boosts smelting efficiency and product quality.

Various Briquettes

Briquetting Across Industries: Briquettes Applications and Material Adaptation

Cold briquetting is increasingly applied across major industrial sectors as an efficient way to recycle fine powders and turn low-value residues into stable, furnace-ready briquettes.

Each industry utilizes this technology differently, adapting the process to specific raw materials, equipment, and production requirements. Its value lies not only in environmental benefits but also in process stability, resource recovery, and long-term cost control.

Ironmaking & Steel Industry: Turning Internal Waste into Furnace Feed

In steel plants, the primary application of  briquetting is to return the plant’s fine, iron-containing powders back into the furnace for reuse.

These powders are often too fine 或者 moisture-sensitive, making them prone to being carried away by hot furnace gases. Cold briquetting compacts these process residues into stable, iron-rich furnace feed, significantly reducing waste disposal pressure.

Typical Materials:

• Blast furnace dust (BF dust)
• Converter dust / powdered converter slag
• EAF dust (electric arc furnace dust)
• Various dust residues
• 氧化铁皮 / rolled steel fines
• Iron concentrates and return fines

Key Benefits in Steel Production

Support for Green Production: Achieves higher internal recycling rates, advancing near-zero waste goals specific to steelmaking operations.

Improved Furnace Stability and Permeability: these agglomerates enhance the charge material structure, ensuring uniform gas flow and reducing powder loss within the furnace.

Higher Metal Recovery: Valuable components like iron and carbon are compacted into recoverable feed, minimizing the need for virgin ore.

Mining, Mineral Processing, and Furnace Feed Optimization

This category focuses on processing both primary mineral concentrates and critical metallurgical additives for effective handling and furnace use. Briquetting solves issues related to ultra-fine particles, ensuring stability during transport and consistency in furnace reactions across ferroalloys and non-ferrous metals. 

Typical Materials:

• Mineral Concentrates: Iron concentrates, Chromium concentrates, Manganese concentrates, Nickel concentrates, Non-ferrous metal tailings.
• Alloy Powders & Fluxes: Ferro-manganese powder, Silico-manganese powder, Limestone and dolomite powder, 萤石粉, Bauxite and alumina powder.
• Carbide slag and chemical byproduct powders.

Key Benefits:

Improved Transport and Storage Stability: Briquetting increases bulk density 、 flowability for easier handling and long-distance transport with less powder loss and dusting.

Optimized Mix and Uniform Furnace Feed: Cold Briquetting mixed powders (e.g., ferroalloys and fluxes) prevents segregation, ensuring consistent chemical composition, which improves product quality and process reliability in non-ferrous and chemical applications.

Enhanced Furnace Reactions: Pressed fluxes melt and form slag more predictably, enhancing heat transfer and boosting overall process efficiency and metal yield.

Recycling Industry: Transforming Metal fines into Recoverable Feedstock

The recycling process generates fine scrap 、 machining powders from external sources. These materials are often problematic due to low density, high surface area, and oxidation risks.

Briquetting converts these small metal particles into compact agglomerates that are stored, transported, and remelted more efficiently, enabling high-value secondary recycling. 

Typical Materials:

• Grinding dust
• Steel and alloy turnings
• Machining chips and powders
• Metal polishing dust
• Mixed fine metallic scrap

Key Benefits in Metal Recycling:

Easier Furnace Feeding: Briquettes provide consistent size and density, streamlining stable remelting operations in electric furnaces or foundries.

Higher Metal Recovery: Reduced oxidation and powder loss during remelting significantly improve yield of secondary metals.

Lower Disposal Needs: Converts previously landfilled dust into valuable recyclable material, directly supporting secondary metal supply chains.

Coking and Coal Industry: Upgrading Fine Fuels for Energy Efficiency

Fine fuels (coal, coke, etc.) can generate dust, lose calorific value, and burn unevenly if not properly formed.

Briquetting transforms these powders into dense, uniform compacts that burn more completely, making them suitable for high-temperature energy applications (boilers, foundries, electric arc furnaces, and ferroalloy furnaces), while simultaneously reducing energy consumption and emissions. 

Typical Materials:

• Lignite and coal powders, Anthracite powder.
• Coke and metallurgical coke powder, Petroleum coke powder, Semi-coke powder.
• Biomass charcoal powder (in some processes). 

Key Benefits in Energy Applications:

Improved Combustion Efficiency and Stability: Agglomerates have higher and more uniform density, improving air distribution for steadier, more complete combustion, increasing thermal efficiency, and reducing unburned carbon loss.

High-Value Applications: Proper formulation allows low-cost fines to be converted into high-value industrial fuel blocks or cold-pressed metallurgical coke, partially replacing expensive primary fuels.

Enhanced Safety and Environmental Performance:Forming powders into briquettes reduces dust during drying, storage, and feeding, improving workplace conditions and reducing particulate emissions.

Coal powder

Briquetting Challenges: Briquette Quality, Strength, and Cost-Effectiveness

Although cold briquetting offers clear advantages, there are key challenges in practical applications, mainly related to the briquettes quality and strength :

Insufficient strength and durability: Briquettes must have enough compressive strength, drop resistance, and thermal stability to withstand transportation, storage, and high-temperature furnace conditions.

If the strength is insufficient, briquettes may break during handling, generating dust and negating the benefits of briquetting. 

Binder selection and cost: The choice of binder is critical for successful cold briquetting. Different raw materials require specific binders, and selecting one that provides strong adhesion, is environmentally friendly, and cost-effective is a core technical challenge.

Raw material adaptability and complexity:Industrial dust vary widely in moisture content, particle size, and chemical activity. Ensuring that the  briquetting machine and process can handle these variations consistently and efficiently requires extensive process expertise.

Jianjie’s Integrated Solution for Strong, Cost-Effective Briquettes

Jianjie offers a complete solution for briquetting, combining years of expertise with tailored services for complex industrial materials. 

Jianjie Briquetting Binder

High-Performance Binders

jianjie binders are designed to ensure stable briquette quality and cost efficiency:

Efficient forming:

Quickly disperses in powder without clumping, improves wettability, and prevents sticking, ensuring smooth operation and low energy use.

Consistent strength

Briquettes resist breakage from wet to dry and in high-temperature conditions, and withstand transport and handling.

Material compatibility

Works with high-calcium and other complex materials, keeping briquettes pure and furnace-ready.

Cost-effective & eco-friendly

Low dosage achieves high strength, reduces raw material costs, and meets clean production standards.

Multiple product series

Different binder series are designed for iron-containing dust, mineral concentrates, 煤 、 能够生成, and non-ferrous powders, ensuring the best match for each material. 

Customizable Binder

Binder Formulations can be adjusted to specific particle sizes, chemical compositions, and briquetting machine setups to deliver optimal briquette performance.

Comprehensive Briquetting Engineering Support

Jianjie also provides full cold briquetting support: process design, equipment selection, lab testing, on-site tuning, and ongoing optimization. Critical parameters like moisture, pressure, and binder dosage are precisely controlled for consistent production.

Using this “customized binder +briquetting process service” approach, Jianjie delivers tailored solutions for diverse materials such as blast furnace dust, iron concentrates, and coal dust, maximizing efficiency and value.

Conclusion

Briquetting allows industries to reuse fine powders, increase material efficiency, and reduce dependence on waste storage. By improving density, stabilizing feed quality, lowering logistics costs, and supporting circular production, it is becoming a key technology for sustainable industrial development. 

With rising environmental requirements and ongoing process upgrades, cold briquetting will play an increasingly important role in global resource recovery and production optimization.

Ready to briquette your industrial fines into higher-value resources? Contact Jianjie to explore a customized briquetting solution tailored to your materials and production needs.