Waste Utilisation : Towards Cleaner Environment

Abstract

The concept of waste utilisation is based on the notion that waste is a resource, but at wrong place and using this concept, many new technologies have been developed. Two case studies have been discussed in the present paper where mineral and metallurgical wastes have been used as raw materials to develop value added products at the Nati-onal Metallurgical Laboratory. In the first case, iron ore tailings, a waste which is generated during iron ore wash-ing, has been used to develop ceramic floor and wall tiles. These tiles confirm all the EN standard specifica-tions and have better scratch hardness and strength then the conventional tiles. In the second case, wear resis-tant ceramic liners has been developed using fly ash. The wear resistant properties of these liners are better then metal and alloy liners and at par with high alumina cera-mic liners. These products can be used in wear prone zones of material handling equipment, chutes, bunkers, hoppers, mills, etc. The philosophies behind the development of these technologies, the processing involved and the prop-erties of the products have been discussed in the paper.