Aluminum dross is a by-product of Aluminum production. At present, dross is processed in rotary kilns to recover the Al, and the resultant salt cake is sent to landfills; although it is sealed to prevent from leaching, the potential for leaching exists and could harm the environment as the salt cake contains fluorides and other salts. Furthermore, much energy is consumed to recover the Al from the dross; this is energy that can be saved if the dross could be diverted and utilized as an engineering material. The objective of this work is to eliminate waste and instead utilize the waste in a natural cycle (closed loop) by using it as an engineered material. Three avenues were investigated to utilize the dross: (i) refractory materials; (ii) aluminum composites; (iii) high temperature additive for de-sulphurizing steel. We have found that the use of dross waste to manufacture refractory material has much merit. Mechanical property evaluations revealed the possibility for dross waste to be utilized as filler in concrete, resulting in a 40% higher flexural strength and a 15% higher compressive strength compared to pure cement. These results will be presented and discussed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:wpi.edu/oai:digitalcommons.wpi.edu:etd-theses-1015 |
| Date | 06 January 2012 |
| Creators | Dai, Chen |
| Contributors | Diran Apelian, Advisor, Richard D. Sisson, Jr., Committee Member, Tahar El-Korchi, Committee Member, Makhlouf M. Makhlouf, Committee Member, Diana A. Lados, Committee Member |
| Publisher | Digital WPI |
| Source Sets | Worcester Polytechnic Institute |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Masters Theses (All Theses, All Years) |
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