Investigations on leaching behaviour of EAF steel slags

Chromium release from different types of EAF steel slags cooled in different conditions was assessed by standard leaching test. The aim of this work was to relate these results to the microstructure and phases composition of the samples, that were carefully investigated by X-Ray Diffraction experiments and SEM-EDXS analyses. In particular, EDXS measurements were performed on polished slag samples before and after immersion in the leaching test solution. The results show that larnite and gehlenite are the only phases of the slags to be strongly dissolved. Their content is very high in slowly cooled slags which also gave rise to the largest release of chromiu