State-of-the-Art and Analysis of Characteristics, Properties, Significance, and Application Prospects of Metallurgical Slags

Abstract

The review article is concerned with the modern state, analysis of characteristics, properties, significance, and prospects of the slags’ application, which are wastes of ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy. The material considers the structure of steelmaking slags, characteristics of steel slags, separation of slags by composition, as well as the world and Kazakhstan experiences of processing them, using environmental safety assessment. The article reviews and studies the methods of slag application in road construction, agriculture, casting technologies, manufacture of Portland cement, clay bricks, green concrete, etc. The article summarizes the practical experience of many scientists’ research in the fields of metallurgical slag applications. The scientific novelty consists in the study of both the world and Kazakhstan experiences in the using metallurgical production slags based on practical data of researchers around the world with the identification of positive and negative properties of various slags under certain conditions. This topic will be of interest of scientists and researchers in the field of metallurgy and materials science. As found based on the obtained data, the extraction of metal from slag significantly reduces the cost; slag is recyclable after recovery of useful metals from it; reduction of slag dumps makes it possible to improve the ecological situation, as well as to free valuable land areas. The issues of identifying the peculiarities of mining and metallurgical industries’ development and fundamentally new directions’ elaboration, as well as unconventional ways of existing production technologies’ improvement require further study.