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Steel Slag Road Technology

Steel Slag Road Technology
Source: PIB

GS III: Science and Technology

Overview

  1. News in brief
  2. About Steel Slag Road Technology
  3. Surat gets India’s first steel slag road
  4. Scope for India

News in Brief


  • Recently, the Union Minister of State for Steel participated in the industry meet held on 18th July 2023 organized under the ‘One Week One Lab’ program of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)-Central Road Research Institute (CRRI).
  • He said that the ‘Waste to Wealth’ vision is being realised in large part because of CSIR-CRRI’s Steel Slag Road technology.

About Steel Slag Road Technology


  • The SIR created the technology as part of a research initiative in partnership with:
    Image by jodeng from Pixabay
    • Ministry of Steel
    • The Government of India
    • Four major steel manufacturing companies in the country
      • ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel
      • JSW Steel
      • Tata Steel
      • Rashtriya Ispat Nigam
  • This technique allows:
    • The efficient disposal of around 19 million tonnes of steel slag generated in the nation
    • The large-scale use of waste steel slag in steel plants

The process

  • A steel furnace’s byproduct, slag, is created while the furnace burns at 1,500–1,600 degrees Celsius.
  • It is regarded as an impurity and takes the form of molten flux material.
  • The molten material is put into slag pits to cool and then goes through a customised process to become stable steel slag aggregates. 

The advantages of steel slag roads

  • Around 30% less expensive than traditional pavement
  • More durable and resistant to erratic weather

Surat gets India’s first steel slag road


  • The first road constructed using steel slag road interpretation technology in Surat, Gujarat, has gained national and international recognition for its technological brilliance.
  • Its construction at the ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel Hazira facility utilised about 1 lakh tonnes of steel slag aggregate.
  • This road was built without the use of any natural ballast of any type.
  • A kilometre-long section of the six-lane public road can be found at Hazira Industries, which also has the AM/NS facility.
  • Steel slag aggregate was created by turning piles of steel trash onto the building site about a year ago.
  • Early in March, the road’s sixth and last lane, which has a three-lane to-and-from carriageway on either side, was finished.
  • Heavy-duty trucks from global corporations with locations in the industrial park on the outskirts of Surat are now using the road.
  • Every day, more than 30 heavy-loaded vehicles utilise the road.
  • To measure load-induced deformation, and stress and strain in the pavement areas, the steel slag road has been constructed using:
    • Instrumented test sections
    • Comprising strain gauges
    • Pressure cells
    • Displacement gauges
    • Thermocouples

 Cost-effective and environmentally friendly

  • The use of processed steel slag in road building, according to Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) authorities, paves the door for sustainable waste management and lessens reliance on perishable natural materials.
  • This procedure is consistent with India’s commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goal No. 9 for building resilient infrastructure through inclusive and sustainable industrialization and green technologies, which calls for reducing GHG emissions and carbon footprint in road construction activity.
  • As a byproduct of the steel industry that is processed and transformed into aggregate material for use in construction, steel slag road doesn’t involve blasting, drilling, or crushing.
  • When it comes to how these roads would affect automobiles, experts claimed that the effect on tyres will be minimal.

Scope for India

  • The vast amount of steel slag produced as a byproduct of the steel industry in India offers a tremendous opportunity for the nation.
  • India is the second-largest producer of steel in the world, and the nation now generates roughly 19 million tonnes of steel slag as solid waste, a number that is expected to rise to 60 million tonnes by the year 2030.
  • Huge mounds of steel slag have accumulated around steel mills as a result of the lack of effective disposal procedures, which has led to increased levels of water, air, and land pollution.
  • One tonne of steel manufacturing produces around 200 kilogrammes of steel slag.

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