Sustainable Approaches for LD Slag Waste Management in Steel Industries: A Review

Reduce, reuse, and recycle are important techniques for waste management. These become significant for improving environmental and economic condition of industries. Integrated steel industries are generating huge amounts of steel slag as waste through the blast furnace and Linz-Donawitz (LD) process. Presently, these wastes are disposed by dumping in an unplanned manner, which causes many environmental problems. The generation rate of slag produced from steel industries is found to be in the range of 150-200 kg per ton of steel production. The LD slag generated by the basic oxygen converter, is one of the waste which can be reused due to the presence of a considerable amount of valuable minerals. In order to recycle and reuse the waste, assessment of their physicochemical, mineralogical and geotechnical characterization is imperative. This paper addresses the characterization and possible utilization of LD slag.