Recycling of metallurgical steel slag waste as partial replacement of raw materials for sustainable clay-based ceramics: A brief review

Abstract

Lately, tremendous industrial wastes such as glass waste, clay-ceramic waste, fly ash, sludge and metallurgical steel slag, particularly electric arc furnace (EAF) slag have been progressively recycled as partial replacement of raw materials in sustainable clay-based ceramics such as brick, ceramic tile and roofing tile. Among these waste, metallurgical steel slag could be an excellent sustainable choice due to its similar chemical composition as raw materials for the ceramics. From literature surveys, the first attempt of recycling the slag into ceramics was proposed by Badiee [1] and they have successfully utilized the slag generated by one of the steel making plants in Iran. This idea was further succeeded by Sarkar [2] by reusing the slag waste generated in India. To the best of author's knowledge, this current research work [3,4] is the third attempt and the research is focussing on utilization of Malaysia's metallurgical steel slag into clay-based ceramics, i.e. ceramic tile. Therefore, this article will be briefly reviewing the previous and current progresses as well as achievements on efforts of recycling the worldwide metallurgical steel slag as partial replacement of raw materials in sustainable clay-based ceramics. The brief review will focus on body formulation, firing temperature, properties of the ceramics, as well as sintering mechanism involved during the firing process.