USE OF GRANULATED STEEL SLAG IN MANUFACTURE OF CEMENT

D Satish Kumar, R Sah, Ganapathi Prasad, S M R Prasad, D Yadav*, S Gupta* and S K Chaturvedi* JSW Steel Ltd, Vijayanagar Works, Toranagallu, Karnataka, India * National Council for Cement and Building Materials, Ballabgarh, Haryana, e-mail: satishkumar.dabbiru@jsw.in Extended Abstract 1. Introduction Slags are the main by-products generated during iron and steel production in the steel industry. Disposal of slags has been a major concern for steel makers. In recent years new technologies have been developed, to recycle slags in different fields such as, cement making, construction and fertilizers. Slags and many other by-products having composition similar to the raw material used in cement making have been experimented world wide. These have been used at various stages of cement making in OPC, PPC and PSC, either as raw material, blending material, and performance improver. Blast furnace slag has long been successfully used as an important raw material substitute in Portland cement manufacturing. Steel making slags which, in comparison with blast furnace slags, have a much higher iron oxide fraction, free lime and metallic iron fraction and in principle have poorer hydraulic properties. Due to these limitations no successful attempt has been reported to use steel making slags in cement making. In the present work steel slag has been granulated to change its physio-chemical properties and lab scale feasibility studies have been carried out for its usage at various stages of cement making. 2. Granulated LD Slag (GLDS) Steel slag or also called as LD slag is generated from BOF process (using the Linz-Donawitz (LD) converter) involving pig iron refining process, which converts molten pig iron and steel scraps into high quality steel At JSW steel, LD slag is subjected to granulation through an innovative quenching technology (Fig-2), adopted, first of its kind in India. The technology separates the metal and slag in a closed system and also washes out free lime and MgO. Due to sudden quenching, of the molten slag, leads to different contraction of metal and slag and results in good separation of metal and slag. Adequate granulation takes place and leads to good stability of the final slag with increased glass content. Granulated slag particles (GLDS) have plain surface texture with reduced free lime, reduced FeO and negligible metallic iron. 3. Characterization of Granulated LD Slag The chemical analysis shows the main constituent oxides as CaO, SiO2, Fe2O3, Mn2O3, Al2O3 and MgO. The results of XRD investigation of GLDS series samples indicated that the major mineral phases in the sample were Manganosite followed by Srebrodolskite, Hematite, Wuestite and Larnite. 4. Experimentation Representative granulated steel slag samples were collected from the slag granulation unit and were used for relevant physical and chemico-mineralogical analysis and lab scale trials. Experimented applications of GLDS in cement making are as below.

Use of GLDS as performance improver

Crushed OPC clinker and gypsum passing through 2.8 mm sieve were inter ground with each crushed samples of GLDS in dosage of 3 and 5 percent. In the process of inter-grinding, all the components were mixed in required proportions in a batch of 5 kg and introduced in the laboratory ball mill for grinding to achieve fineness level of 300 + 10 m2/kg. The above prepared cement blends were studied for their performance characteristics such as consistency, setting time, compressive strength development and soundness as per procedure described in Indian Standard Specification IS:4031 -1988. The results of compressive strength development indicated that the effect of GLDS at 3 percent level did not yield desired results and the strength values were comparable to that of control cement. However the scenario improved with the addition level of 5 percent of GLDS. The addition of 5 percent GLDS did not affect the other parameters of the performance such as water requirement, setting time and soundness. Therefore addition of 5 percent of GLDS could be considered as performance improver when added in the OPC. Use of GLDS as blending material

Crushed OPC clinker and gypsum passing through 2.8 mm sieve were inter ground with each crushed samples of GLDS-C and GBFS individually in quantum of 30, 40, 50 and 60 percent separately. The prepared cement blends were studied for their performance characteristics such as setting time, compressive strength development and soundness as per procedure described in Indian Standard Specification IS:4031 -1988 The results of compressive strength development indicated that the effect of GBFS and GLDS addition in the range of 30 to 60 percent yielded strength development results as expected. In case of GBFS addition, the compressive strength decreased at 3 and 7 days and improved to the desired level at 28 days up to 50 percent addition level. However beyond 50 percent addition level, the compressive strength development decreased at all ages. The similar trend was also observed in case of GLDS additions. In this case, the compressive strength decreased at 3 and 7 days and improved at 28 days as expected. The turning point in this case was 40 percent GLDS addition and beyond this level the compressive strength decreased at all ages. The cement blends up to 40 percent addition of GLDS were conforming to the requirements of Indian Standard Specification IS:8112 for 43 grade OPC as well as IS:456 for PSC with wide margins of compressive strengths. The resultant cement blends were also tested for soundness by Le-chatelier method and autoclave test. The linear expansion (mm) and autoclave expansion (%) in these cement samples were found to be in the range of 1-4 mm and 0.03-0.23 percent respectively. Therefore addition level of 40 percent GLDS can be considered optimum. Use of GLDS as raw materials

About 10 Kgs of raw mixes namely RM-C (control mix) and RM-2 (raw mixes replacing GLDS with source of Iron) were prepared by taking weighed quantities of raw materials, viz. the two limestone, blue dust, GLDS and coal ash, blending them and grinding them in a ball mill to a fineness of ~ 10 percent residue on 90 (170 mesh) sieve. The nodules were prepared in a pan nodulizer and dried in an electric oven at 1055 C for 2 hours before introducing in an electric furnace at ambient temperature and firing it at 1400C for 20 minutes. The resultant ambient cooled clinker designated as CL-C-B and CL-2-B was studied for chemical and mineralogical characteristics. The Ordinary Portland Cement samples (OPC-C-B and OPC-2-B) prepared was evaluated for their performance as per relevant Indian Standard Specification.

The initial and final setting times of Ordinary Portland Cement prepared in laboratory from bulk clinker, CL-C-B and CL-2-B, were determined as per IS:4031-1988 and found to be 110 and 165 minutes for OPC-C-B and 70 and 160 minutes for OPC-2-B respectively. The compressive strength of Ordinary Portland Cement OPC-C-B and OPC-2-B were determined as per IS:4031-1988 and were 55 and 68MPa respectively, higher than BIS requirements. Autoclave and Le-chatelier expansion tests on OPC-C-B and OPC-2-B prepared from respective bulk clinkers were carried out as per the procedures laid down in IS:4031-1988. Autoclave expansion was found to be 0.05 percent and Le-chatelier expansion to be 1.0 mm in case of OPC C-B and 0.01 percent and 2.00 mm respectively in case of OPC-2-B. The results indicated high volume stability of both the cement sample i.e. OPC-C-B and OPC-2-B. The addition of GLDS had acted like a mineraliser owing to the presence of Mangenese (Mn) in it, which is an established mineraliser. The presence of GLDS as raw materials had affected the nuclei formation and resulted in controlled grain growth of alite and belite with improved crystallinity. The performance evaluation of OPC-C-B and OPC-2-B established that the resultant cement from the bulk clinkers CL-CB and CL-2-B are conforming the various requirements as laid down in Indian Standard specification IS:12269-1987 for 53 grade OPC. 5. Conclusions Physico-chemical and mineralogical characteristics of granulated steel slag showed good similarity to the materials presently being used in cement making. Based on the studies it is concluded that granulated steel slag can be used as: (a) As Raw Material in Cement Manufacture - 4.25 percent by weight of GLDS could be gainfully utilized as raw material replacing iron bearing additive in the raw mix and good quality clinker could be produced at 1400oC. ( b) As Performance Improver - 5% GLDS could be used as performance improver in cement manufacture. The results indicated that compressive strength at 28 days improved up to 3.5 percent when compared to that of control ordinary Portland cement (OPC) without affecting the other parameters such as water requirement, setting time and soundness. (c) As Blending Materials - Up to 40 % GLDS by weight could be added during clinker grinding stage to manufacture cement blends with compressive strength comparable to control OPC and Portland Slag Cement (PSC) containing granulated BF slag (GBFS).