Metallurgical Wastes as Resources for Sustainability of the Steel Industry

Dana-Adriana Iluţiu-Varvara and Claudiu Aciu
Additional contact information
Dana-Adriana Iluţiu-Varvara: Faculty of Building Services Engineering, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, 28 Memorandumului Street, 400114 Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Claudiu Aciu: Faculty of Civil Engineering, Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, 28 Memorandumului Street, 400114 Cluj-Napoca, Romania

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 9, 1-25

Abstract: The industrial pollution caused by metallurgical waste accumulation has a negative impact on the three environmental factors: soil, air and water. Therefore, the correct management of these wastes would lead to: protection of the environmental factors, the saving of natural resources and sustainability of the steel industry. The purpose of this paper is to assess the chemical and mineralogical compositions of metallurgical wastes landfilled in the Păgida slag dump (Alba County, Romania), for sustainability of the steel industry and metal conservation. The chemical compositions of the two waste samples were analyzed by the XRF (X-ray fluorescence) technique. According to the chemical characterization, magnesium oxide (MgO) has potential to be used as an additional and raw material in the cement industry. The presence of oxides such as CaO, SiO 2 FeO and Al 2 O 3 in the compositions of the metallurgical waste samples indicate that they have the potential for use as clinker materials in cement production. The iron and manganese contents from metallurgical wastes can be reused in the iron and steel industry. The presence of V 2 O 5 and TiO 2 is connected with the making of stainless steel, and for this reason they have the potential to be reused in the stainless steel industry. The predominant chemical compounds are SiO 2 , Fetotal, Cao and MgO. The mineralogical compositions were analyzed by the XRD (X-ray diffraction) technique. The mineralogical compounds presenting reuse potential in different domains are Fayalite, Magnetite, Magnesioferrite and Periclase. The mineralogical compounds from metallurgical wastes can be reused as: raw and/or additional materials in the process from which they originate (steelmaking); raw and/or additional materials in road construction and concrete production; pigments in paints; micronutrients in fertilizers; ore of iron, etc. Then, the theoretical assessments of the recovery potentials of the metals were estimated for slag dumps. Copper (Cu), vanadium (V), molybdenum (Mo) and nickel (Ni) have high recovery potential. The total economic value of the recovery potential of metals from slag dumps was assessed to be USD 1175.7440 million.

Keywords: conservation; metallurgical wastes; metals; mineralogical characterization; recovery potential; slag dump; steel industry; sustainability; X-ray diffraction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/9/5488/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/9/5488/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:9:p:5488-:d:807834

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().