Magnetic Susceptibility and Heavy Metal Content in Dust From the Lime Plant and the Cement Plant in Opole Voivodeship

Abstract

Until now, dust arising from lime manufacture has been considered harmless to the environment so it has been investigated marginally from the standpoint of environmental protection, especially when it came to magnetic properties and heavy metal content. The aim of the research was fi lling the gap in this area. The research comprised measurements of magnetic susceptibility, the content of heavy metals, reaction (pH) and specifi c conductivity of lime dust and also raw material and fuel used for lime production. The samples were taken from one of the lime plants located in Opole Province. Similar investigations were also performed for dust taken from the nearby cement plant using dry method of cement production. It was proven that magnetic susceptibility, heavy metal content and conductivity of lime dust was lower in comparison to cement dust, which resulted from the fact that the lime plant used neither low raw materials nor additives. Due to the high atmosphere dust level in the vicinity of the investigated plants, extremely basic reaction of the tested dust and high content of metals, the studied dust cause alkalization of soils and contribute to the increase of heavy metal content in soils, posing a threat to the environment.

Steel Slag Characterisation—Benefit of Coupling Chemical, Mineralogical and Magnetic Techniques

“…In a more global context, Figure 6 shows the studied slag magnetic susceptibilities among other values reported for various materials-dust loaded tree leaves [40][41][42], urban dust (air suspended particles and road dust) [43,44], industrial wastes [21][22][23][24], rocks [45,46] and soils [17,18,24,[47][48][49][50][51].…”

“…Magnetic susceptibility of the studied slag is also significantly higher than for soils (maximum of 31.25 × 10 −6 m 3 /kg in an industrial area [17]) and tree leaves (maximum of 0.54 × 10 −6 m 3 /kg for Himalayan cypress leaves in Kathmandu [40]). In a more global context, Figure 6 shows the studied slag magnetic susceptibilities among other values reported for various materials-dust loaded tree leaves [40][41][42], urban dust (air suspended particles and road dust) [43,44], industrial wastes [21][22][23][24], rocks [45,46] and soils [17,18,24,[47][48][49][50][51].…”

“…Magnetic susceptibility of the studied slag is also significantly higher than for soils (maximum of 31.25 × 10 −6 m 3 /kg in an industrial area [17]) and tree leaves (maximum of 0,54 × 10 −6 m 3 /kg for Himalayan cypress leaves in Kathmandu [40]). [17,18,[21][22][23][24]38,[40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52]. Magnetic susceptibility measured for some surrounding rocks (micaschiste, gneiss, sandstone) are included.…”

Mineralogical and Chemical Specificity of Dusts Originating from Iron and Non-Ferrous Metallurgy in the Light of Their Magnetic Susceptibility

“…Many publications have described the chemical composition and the content of basic elements of fly and bottom ashes [18][19][20][21]. The results of several publications on emissions from other industries such as refineries, cement, coke, or steel plants have been used to assess the critical issue of environmental pollution levels [22][23][24][25][26]. However, it is very important to determine the mineralogical phase composition of dusts, because very often the chemical composition alone is not sufficient to estimate whether individual types of dust are easily or sparingly soluble.…”

Magnetic Susceptibility in the Soils Along Communication Routes in the Town of Opole

“…The influence of anthropogenic factors, such as the vicinity of a railway line or emission of pollution from the former "Bolko" cement plant, has to be considered. The studies carried out by Gołuchowska et al (2010Gołuchowska et al ( , 2012 indicate the problem of dust depositions in the cement plant influence zone, with excessive amounts of chromium, cadmium or zinc, among others. The relations between the intensity of magnetic susceptibility and the content of heavy metals discussed in literature, are one of the reasons for increasing magnetic susceptibility and, in this way, the increase of magnetic susceptibility of roadside soils [Hunt et al 1984;Strzyszcz and Magiera 1998;Schmidt et al 2005;Rachwał et al 2017].…”