With the rapid expansion of the Chinese steel industry and exhaustion of choice iron ore deposits, high-grade iron ore resources are in short supply globally. More and more mid-low grade iron ores with high Al2O3 content has been exploited and imported from oversea in China. Undoubtedly, the undesired Al2O3 content in iron ores certainly have an adverse impact on subsequent sintering process. In this paper, the influence of alumina and its various types, such as gibbsite, aluminosilicates and diaspore, on sintering performances were investigated. The results show that sintering of this high Al2O3 iron ores is likely to require higher fuel as higher temperatures are required to generate the bonding phases. Meanwhile, with an increase of Al2O3 content, the sinter tumble index and yield are decreased significantly. In addition, the addition of Al2O3 also adversely affects the metallurgical performance of sinter products. However, the effect of various types of alumina present in iron ore fines on sintering performances and metallurgical properties of sinter is different. Based on this, the mechanism of alumina and its types on sintering process was revealed as well. It is essential to better understanding of mid-low iron ores with different types of Al2O3 utilized in sintering process. CITATION:Zhu, D-Q, Guo, Z-Q, Pan, J, Li, S-W and Yang, C-C, 2019. Effect of alumina and its types on sintering performance, in Proceedings Iron Ore 2019, pp 196205 (The Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy: Melbourne).