Influence of commercial and residual sorbents and silicates as additives on the stabilisation/solidification of organic and inorganic industrial waste

Abstract

An environmental problem of the foundry activities is the management of industrial waste generated in different processes. The foundry sludge from gas wet cleaning treatment that contains organic and inorganic compounds and a high content of water is an interesting example. Due to their characteristics, they can be managed using different stabilisation/solidification (S/S) technologies prior to land disposal. The purpose of this work is to study S/S formulations in order to improve the control of the mobility of the pollutants and the ecotoxicity of the samples. Different mixtures of cement or lime as binders and additives (foundry sand, silica fume, sodium silicate, silicic acid, activated carbon and black carbon) have been used in order to reduce the mobility of the chemical and ecotoxicological regulated parameters and to compare the results for commercial and residual additives. The best results have been obtained with sorbents (activated carbon and black carbon) or sodium silicate. The results of the foundry sand ash as additive can conclude that it can be used as replacement in the cement products. However, silica fume in the samples with lime and siliceous resin sand as additives gives products that do not fulfil the regulated limits. Finally, some linear expressions between the chemical parameters and the quantity of material used in the samples have been obtained.