An Innovative approach towards utilisation of wastes generated from iron & steel industries

Abstract

The iron and steel industries around the world are responsible for the generation of large amount of waste materials mainly because they process huge quantity of raw materials. Neither the governments nor the society have forced the industries to develop ways and means of managing the waste in a creative way. However, with very little land available for disposal of wastes and also because whatever was a waste material two decades ago can not be considered a waste today due to ever increasing shortage of natural resources including ores, minerals and fuels, the pattern of thinking of scientists and technologists have changed. Newer materials and products are now being developed from wastes generated from different process industries including metallurgical industries. In this paper, the authors aim to present the development of a few products carried out at the National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur from solid waste generated from iron & steel industries including captive power plants. Some of these products are wear resistant ceramic lining materials, refractory aggregate for high alumina cement tastable, ceramicfloor & wall tiles, etc. The theoretical aspects behind development of these products have also been touched upon.