Department of Environmental Studies

The Indian Iron and Steel scenario has changed considerably after the announcement of Government Policy on de-control and liberalization. Several new entrepreneurs have entered the steel industry. It is heartening to see that the steel industry is set to carve a niche for itself in the domestic and foreign market. The rapid progress of steel industry has aggravated environmental and waste management problems. This has led to increasing pressure from Government and the public to speed up action plan for effective industrial waste management. The waste management in steel industry is an emerging complex issue and can be implemented after regulating through monitoring, analysis, legalization , addition of infra-structural facilities for enforcement, waste auditing , change of process technology etc. The paper reviews current knowledge of waste management in Indian Steel Industry, approaches to environmental improvement and examines various options to environmental management plan keeping in view of the importance of sustainable endurance of environment and other natural resources.

A large number of processing steps from ore handling to steel finishing involved in the manufacture of steel, consume substantial resources and lead to complex problems of environmental pollution with local as well as global impacts. Paper identifies various global and local environmental issues that steel industry presents before the mankind. Among the global issues, the large emissions of carbon dioxide from steel industry is a major cause of concern to environmentalists. The quantity of this green house gas constitutes a significantly large proportion of the global CO2 load and hence it contributes significantly in the global warming phenomenon. Some of the important methods have been briefly discussed to reduce these emissions through major energy conservation programmes and implementation of energy efficient processes. Among local issues are the problems of air, water and noise pollution along with the generation of large quantity of solid wastes. Under each area some of the programmes have been identified which could provide major research directions towards making the steel industry increasingly more environment friendly.

Significant quantities of sludge and dust are generated as a waste material or byproduct every day from iron and steel industries. Nowadays The occurrence and recovery of metallurgical wastes from steelmaking and iron making processes is a great problem, mainly due to the big amount and environmental pollution of these wastes by heavy metals. The future technology of fine-grain metallurgical wastes treatment is mainly the thing of ecological and financial limits. This work explains the removal of zinc from blast furnace sludge by hydrometallurgical process. The aim of this work was to carry out a chemical, physical, structural, and morphological characterization of these waste materials and subsequently to find out the best suitable method for the hydrometallurgical treatment. The experimental work includes full plant experiments. Extraction conditions such as the effect of microwave power, leaching agent, acid concentration, S/L ratio and extraction time on the zinc removal efficiency were evaluated. The main goal is to set the best conditions to transfer zinc into the solution while the iron should to remain in the solid phase.

The aim of this article is to present the key elements of environmental management system in metallurgical companies. This companies in use the Cleaner Production Strategy. All modern strategies are based on dynamic environmental model. Production processes still create waste and pollution although a significant amount is now recycled. For example in metallurgical companies located in the Polish market about 80% of solid waste is recycled. The minimization or complete removal of damages caused by metallurgical production are a necessary and important aspect of maintaining a competitive edge.