The Formation, Properties and Use of Dispersed Iron-Graphite Metallurgical Waste

Dispersed wastes containing graphite, iron, and its oxides, getting into the air and accumulating in landfills, cause serious harm to human health and the environment. Moreover, even if the issue of the localization of these wastes has been solved successfully, their disposal has not yet been fully organized. In the present study, a systematic analysis of the dispersed iron-graphite waste (IGW) conditions for the formation at metallurgical enterprises, their structure, and their properties were carried out. In this case, special attention is focused on the electrophysical properties: specific saturation magnetization and volume resistivity. The presence of magnetic properties in IGW, combined with low electrical resistivity, makes IGW a promising and inexpensive raw material for obtaining cheap composite materials with radio shielding and radio absorbing properties in the microwave range. As a result of the research, effective ways of improving the magnetic properties of IGW by high-temperature treatment were obtained. The practical result of the research was the development and implementation of a technological scheme of dispersed IGW complex processing, which makes it possible to solve a twofold task – to exclude the ingress of iron-graphite wastes into the environment and to obtain a cheap material for protection against microwave radiation.