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Conversion of chromium-containing solid wastes into value-added products through a plasma-assisted aluminothermic process

  • Green Technologies for Sustainable Water
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Abstract

Chromium-containing solid wastes have been generated by chemical and leather/tanning industries, and the management and proper disposal of the same wastes have been challenging tasks. A significant fraction of these wastes contains chromium compounds with chromium present in the hexavalent (Cr+6) form, which is hazardous to human beings, animals, and ecosystems. Since these wastes are discarded largely without proper treatments, soil and groundwater get contaminated and they can cause several health issues to human beings. Conventional methods developed to convert hazardous Cr6+ to Cr3+/Cr metal either generate secondary toxic wastes and unwanted by-products and/or are time-consuming processes. In this work, a plasma-assisted aluminothermic process is developed to convert the toxic waste into non-toxic products. The waste was mixed with aluminium powder and subjected to transferred arc plasma treatment in a controlled air atmosphere. Chemical analysis and Cr leachability studies of the waste material prior to plasma treatment have shown that it is highly toxic. Analysis of the products obtained from the plasma treatment showed that Cr and Fe present in the waste could be recovered as a metallic mixture as well as oxide slag, which were found to be non-toxic. Easy separation of the metallic fraction and the slag from the treated product is one of the merits of this process. Besides converting chromium-containing toxic waste to non-toxic materials, the process is rapid and recovers the metals from the waste completely.

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Data availability

The datasets generated and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available, since we generated it for the first time, but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Financial supports from University Grants Commission, Department of Science and Technology, and Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences, Government of India, are greatly acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Bharathiar University, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, 641046, India

    Saravanakumar Rajalingam & Ramachandran Kandasamy

  2. Power Beam Society of India, Mumbai, India

    Anandapadmanabhan Pudugramam Vishwanathan

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  1. Saravanakumar Rajalingam
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  2. Ramachandran Kandasamy
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  3. Anandapadmanabhan Pudugramam Vishwanathan
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Contributions

Saravanakumar R: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, investigation, writing—first draft, editing.

K Ramachandran: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, validation, resources, writing—original draft, review and editing, project administration, supervision.

PV Anandapadmanabhan: formal analysis, validation, review and editing.

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Correspondence to Ramachandran Kandasamy.

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Rajalingam, S., Kandasamy, R. & Pudugramam Vishwanathan, A. Conversion of chromium-containing solid wastes into value-added products through a plasma-assisted aluminothermic process. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 63682–63689 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12581-x

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