Acid neutralization using steel slags : Adsorption of fluorides in solutions using AOD slags

Abstract: Surface treatment processes of stainless steel, such as pickling, produces acidic waste water consisting of Na⁺, Cl⁻, F⁻, NO⁻3, SO42-, PO43-, Fe3+, Cr6+ and Ni2+. At Sandvik ABs steel works in Sandviken, this waste water is treated and neutralized using slaked lime before being released into the lake Storsjön. The aim of this report was to make a literary review of previous work in using slag as a neutralizing agent for acidic waste water. Furthermore, to see if it’s possible to replace some or all of the slaked lime in the neutralization process with slag and to study what slag that might be suitable to use. Since the waste water contains HF acid, the focus of this report was on different materials used for fluoride adsorptions. The literary study showed that the fluoride adsorption process with BOF slag, quick lime and magnesium oxide as adsorbents were endothermic. Therefore, it benefitted from an increased temperature. Furthermore, the literature study showed that many materials follow a pseudo-second-order kinetic model as well as a Langmuir or Freundlich isotherm for a fluoride adsorption. A previous experiment showed that a mixture of BF slag and slaked lime had the best HF acid neutralization among the tested materials. A fluoride adsorption experiment was made at different temperatures (25 – 55 °C) by using a slag from an aluminium reduced steel melt and a slag from a silicon reduced steel melt from the AOD converter in Sandviken. The silicon reduced steel melt slag showed an increase of fluorides in the solution, due to the presence of calcium fluoride in the slag. This was observed for all temperatures. The aluminium reduced steel melt slag also increased the fluoride content in the solution at 25 and 30 °C. At higher temperatures the fluoride content in the solution decreased with 93.6 to 94.9 %. Na⁺, Cl⁻, F⁻, NO⁻3, SO42-, PO43-, Fe3+, Cr6+, and Ni2+