Hendrik G van Oss, a mineral commodity specialist for the U.S. Minerals Information Center has awarded iron and steel slag the  “Mineral Resource of the Month.” Stating that iron and steel slags are co-products of iron and steelmaking, not waste products. The use of correct language terms when discussing slag and other co/by products is an essential step to increased utilisation.

Van Oss furthur explained how the method used to cool the slag determines the market uses of the product, as well as interesting facts and figures about the resource itself. Details can he found here.

U.S. Minerals Information Center Esimates of Global Production

In terms of slag production and consumption, the U.S. Minerals Information Center estimated that the 2014 world output of blast furnace slag was between 300-350Mt and the 2014 world output of steel slag to be 160-250Mt.

“U.S. sales of processed blast furnace slag totaled about 8 million metric tonnes in 2014, and steel slag sales totaled about 11Mt. Granulated slag accounted for nearly one-third of the blast furnace slag sales tonnage but contributed nearly 90% of the value of the sales” says Hendrik G van Oss.

Through replacing some of the general pourposePortland cement in concrete, slag simultaneously reduces the carbon footprint of concrete production and improving quality of the concrete itself. However something you might not have known about slag is that it can also be used in glass manufacturing for reduced emissions, minimized energy consumption and for the glass production quality. Sewage treatment is yet another use for slag as it has been proven in a resratch article produced by the School of sustainable development of society and technology, Mälardalen University to assist with the removal of phosphorus.

To read more about the features of slag, and the types of slag, visit the Products tab on the website.