Hydraulic performance of a land-fill top cover based on steel slag

• The steel industry is expanding and following the amount of produced steel, more and more by-products and residuals are generated. About 17.6 million tonnes of steel slags arise in Europe every year. In Sweden about 18 % of the iron- and steelmaking slags are landfilled (Jernkontoret, 2012). One application for steel slags are landfill covers where large amounts of virgin materials are needed. The legal requirement in Sweden is directed towards the maxi¬mum amount of lea¬chate generated at the bottom of the landfill: < 5 and < 50 l (m2*a)-1 for landfill class 1 and 2, respec¬ti¬vely. To secure these demands, a layer of low permeability is needed to reduce water infiltration. The hydraulic load of this layer ought to be controlled by a protective water balance layer and an effective drainage layer.Previous investigations indicate that steel slags can be used as construction material for both liner and drainage layer (Herrmann et al., 2010). In order to verify this in full scale, five tests areas (A1-5) were constructed at a municipal landfill in Sweden between 2005 and 2011. The areas were designed using different mixtures of steel slags from the local steel company in the liner. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the hydraulic performance of the cover during the first years after installation.The design of the cover construction was varied like this: a mixture of 50 % electric arc furnace slag (EAFS) and 50 % ladle slag (LS) was tested as liner material in the first test area (A1). A2 and A3 were built using less LS and coarser fractions of EAFS since laboratory tests had given satisfactory results also for these recipes. High infiltration rates in A2 and 3 led to a return to the original weight proportions in A4 and 5, yet another EAF slag was introduced in these areas. The mixing and construction techniques were refined during the first years of the project time: while A1 was built with rather poorly conceived technique, as of A3 the method can be considered as technically mature and approved.The liner performance was evaluated by lysimetry: 10 lysimeters were installed below each test area. The infiltration below the liner corresponded to 44, 74, 71, 19 and 0.4 l/m2*year for A1 to A5. Compared to the legal limit of 50 l/m2*year, the covers of A2 and A3 allowed about 50 % more water to enter the landfill than stipulated.An initial increase of the infiltration was observed, which most likely is related to increasing water saturation of the liner material in the first period after construction. The saturation occurred fastest in A2, where basically no initial increase was observed, probably due to the long time that elapsed between construction and the first sampling event (260 days). In contrast, the saturation in A1 and A4 was quite slow which can be related to the smaller particle size of the slags in these areas and, hence, a less porous liner material. The decrease in A2 and A3 might be explained by mineral transformations within the slag matrix such as carbonation of calcium and magnesium leading to the precipitation of carbonates in the pores of the liner material. Future observations will show if the decreasing trend in A2 and A3 remains such that the infiltration eventually reaches a level falling below the legal limit.The results show that the infiltration criteria can be fulfilled under the condition that at least 50 % of the liner mix consists of ladle slag, a fine-grained slag with cementitious properties. With few adaptations the steel slag can be used with standard construction processes.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Naturresursteknik -- Annan naturresursteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Environmental Engineering -- Other Environmental Engineering (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Landfill Technology

Waste Science and Technology

Lysimetry

Steel slag

Avfallsteknik

Waste Science and Technology

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