Young scientist creates technology for the secondary use of ferrous metallurgy materials

A postgraduate student of South Ural State University is developing a technology that will facilitate the use of material from steelmaking enterprises. The results of the study will find application in zinc production.

Work on research in the field of materials processing at electric steelmaking enterprises has been ongoing for several years. During the implementation of scientific interests, young scientists published a scientific article in the journal Materials Science Forum, indexed by the Scopus database. The project "Research and development of progressive technology for microwave calcination of Waelz oxide" was also supported by a grant from the Russian Federal Property Fund.

"Waelz oxide is a zinc product, which is obtained mainly in the processing of secondary zinc materials and materials of the main zinc production. The study aims to purify Waelz oxide from impurities. Impurities must be removed for further high-quality zinc production during electrolysis. The cleaning will be carried out using microwaves and is based on the difference in the physical properties of the impurities and the main product contained in Waelz-oxide, "says Andrei Ryazanov, the author of the project, graduate student of the Department of Materials Science and Physical Chemistry of Materials of the Polytechnic Institute of SUSU.

The technology will facilitate the recycling of recycled zinc material from the process of remelting automotive scrap. Recycled material can be sent for recycling in a Waelz kiln. In the process of processing the material in the Waelz kiln, Waelz oxide with impurities is formed, which is the object of research of the graduate student of SUSU The direction of development of technologies for the use of secondary materials is one of the most relevant today, since scientists are faced with the task of reusing resources with limited reserves.

The microwave calcination technology, which is planned to be studied by young scientists as a new method, has the following feature: energy resources locally affect only impurities, the remaining product remains unused and is used in further production. The technology under study should be more effective, which will lead to an increase in the use of recycled materials and an improvement in the ecological state of the environment.

Work on the project was launched in 2019 and will be conducted over two years. Currently, a study is underway of the qualitative composition of the starting products and a pre-design study is underway to launch a laboratory unit for further research.

Provided by South Ural State University