In the dumps of power plants of the Republic of Kazakhstan, only from the combustion of Ekibastuz coal, ~ 300 million tons of ash have been accumulated, with an annual release of up to 30 million tons. Up to 200 g/t of gallium, germanium, 1 g/t of gold, 4% of zinc, 1% of lead, 0.3% of cadmium and other elements are lost with ash. The work is aimed at unit creation to obtain hydrogen-enriched water gas from ekibastuz coal with the production of Zn, Ga, Ge sublimates, copper-containing cast iron, slag wool and/or cast stone, when joint processing of iron-zinc-contained slag and ash-cinder wastes of thermal power plants.

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The production activity of mankind using high-ash fossil fuels for electricity generation is steadily increasing ash waste and carbon dioxide emissions into the environment. The article proposes a variant of wasteless combustion of Ekibastuz coal in a melting reactor installed under the boiler; it is envisaged to obtain, in addition to steam of energy parameters, a melt suitable for the production of building materials, sublimates of zinc, gallium and germanium, to reduce emissions of "CO2" into the atmosphere and return to the process a part of carbon in "CO2". An energy-saving thermal diagram of a power plant boiler has been developed on the basis of the proposed technology for the reduction of "СО2, Н2О" of reactor waste gases with zinc vapor to "СО, Н2". The resulting excessive hydrogen will be used to displace elemental carbon from "CO". The spent reagent, zinc oxide, after recovering into zinc will be used again in the process. In case of implementation, CO2 emissions into the atmosphere will be cut up to 50%, the expected payback period of the proposed system will be 1.0 - 1.5 years.

The industrial activity of mankind using mineral raw materials and fossil fuels is steadily increasing man-made waste and carbon dioxide emissions. These factors, in turn, lead to pollution of the soil, air and an increase in the temperature of the earth’s atmosphere. This article discusses an example of waste-free processing of excavated slag and the search for a method of minimizing carbon dioxide in the exhaust gases of the smelting unit. When solving this problem, the main provisions of the method of extreme energy saving were used: 1) selection of a high-performance melting unit; 2) the formation of a technology that allows decreasing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere; 3) development of a heating scheme for an energy-saving, waste-free, environmentally friendly processing of industrial waste. On the basis of the created energy-saving unit “reactor inversion phase – rotary kiln”, a thermal scheme for waste-free processing of zinc-containing slag has been developed. It is proposed that “CO2, H2O” in the reactor exhaust gas be reduced with zinc vapors to “CO, H2”. The resulting excess hydrogen will be used to displace from CO elemental carbon, which will serve as reducing agent in the zinc distiller. In case of implementation, the proposed system expects integrated waste management, minimization of CO2 emissions into the atmosphere up to 50% and a five-fold reduction in the specific fuel consumption per process.