This paper aims to study the dielectric properties and carbothermic reduction of zinc oxide (zincite, ZnO) and zinc ferrite (franklinite, ZnFe2O4) by microwave heating. To achieve this aim, the dielectric properties were measured with an open-ended coaxial method to understand the behaviour of the samples under microwave irradiation. The effects of microwave power, duration time and sample mass on the heating rate, and the effects of the stoichiometric amount of graphite on the reduction of ZnO and decomposition of ZnFe2O4 were investigated. The results show that ZnFe2O4 has significantly higher dielectric properties compared to ZnO. Generally, for both samples, the dielectric values at room temperature were quite low, indicating that both ZnO and ZnFe2O4 are poor microwave absorbers. It was found that the temperatures have a more significant effect on the imaginary permittivities than on the real permittivities. The heating rate showed that the sample temperature increased with increase in microwave power and sample mass. Using 700 W of microwave power and two times the stoichiometric amount of graphite, almost complete reduction of ZnO was achieved in 12 min, while ZnFe2O4 completely decomposed to zincite and wustite in 3 min.
Keywords: carbothermic reduction; dielectric properties; microwave heating; zinc ferrite; zinc oxide.