Ore Processing Technologies Applied to Industrial Waste Decontamination: A Case Study

The correct management of industrial waste, as well as being an environmental obligation, can also be used as an opportunity to reduce costs in terms of energy and raw material consumption. A large amount of waste sand is generated in foundries with a high content of pollutants adhering to its surface structure. In this study, the material utilized consists of a silicic sand that comes from a casting process, with a thin layer of fixed carbon on the surface of the particles. The objective is to remove this contaminant, in order to have clean sands for use in alternative processes, such as in glass raw material, green concrete, or in the recirculation of these in the same process. The mechanical action that is best for eliminating surface attached contaminants is abrasion. In this regard, two specific devices, commonly used in ore processing operations, were utilized to apply energy in a material in order to reach abrasion by attrition, but with different kinetic approaches: stirring in a slurry media and using a light milling, in both cases reducing the grinding media in order to avoid material fracture. The test performance evaluation is mainly focused on the decontamination efficiency, the sand mass recovery ratio, and the energy consumption. The results show that in all cases, liberation is reachable in different levels at different residence times. We were able to decrease the LOI content from 4% to less than 1%, combined with a near 85% recovery rate of clean sand in the case of stirring. In the case of light milling, the results are even better: the final product reached near 0.5% of LOI content, despite mass flow recovery potentially being less than 80%. Finally, we discuss whether energy consumption is the factor which decides the best alternative. The energy consumed ratio when comparing light milling with stirring is near 9:1, which is a significant amount when taking into account the importance of reducing energy consumption in today’s industry due to its economic and environmental impact.