Slags from metallurgy – raw material potential and recycling
On 12 October 2011 the conference “Slags from Met-allurgy” will take place in Meitingen near Augsburg. The raw material potential and the general conditions of the reuse of slag as secondary raw material are in the focus of the event. The production of steel from scrap and the reuse of the residual products of this production are a unique example of the recycling management. Renowned experts will discuss legal, economic, technological and ecological aspects of the use of slags from the steel industry.
However, the impacts of the production process and of the reuse on the environment will also be a topic of the event. In the last few years steel mills made great efforts as regards recycling. However, binding legal guidelines and information were missing, e.g. in connection with the public discussion concerning the use of slags as building material. This slag symposium is to take into account this need for information of all those who want to produce and process as well as utilize this material (e.g. contract-placing authorities, road construction companies, experts, licensing and specialist agencies). In North Rhine-Westphalia, Lower Saxony and other federal states, steel works slags, as by-products of steel production, have been used for construction measures for many years. Amongst other things, slags have the property that particularly durable and low-noise road surfaces can be made from them. However, the amounts of slag existing in Germany only cover close to four percent of the entire need for building materials.
Due to their properties as building materials, their environmental compatibility, but also due to the legal obligation of utilization and, not least, because of the favourable price, it is a good choice to preferably use the available amounts of slag instead of primary raw materials. The future use of slags is a central topic of the present discussion as regards the long-awaited substitute building materials regulations that will specify the legal framework for the recycling of mineral building materials. Thus, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martin Faulstich from Munich Technical University, who is also the chairman of the Council of Environmental Advisors, will talk about the material flows in the industrial recycling management. The human toxicological evaluation, dealt with by Mrs Prof. Dr. Heidi Foth, will also be very interesting. She is the director of the Institute of Environmental Toxicology of Halle University and also a member of the Council of Environmental Advisors. There is a connection between this event and the Bavarian Raw Material Summit as regards time and contents. It is part of the cooperation with the chair of resource strategy at the Scientific Centre Environment of Augsburg University, which is held by Prof. Dr. Armin Reller. The goal is to emphasize the raw material potential of slags and to develop processes of their utilization. The organizers are glad that this conference can take place at the location of Lech-Stahlwerke and the SGL Group at Meitingen. Both companies are of special importance for the German automobile industry, i.e. Lech-Stahlwerke as important supplier of special steel for the Bavarian, German and European automobile industry and the SGL Group as supplier, amongst other things, of the innovative carbon fibre for the car production.
