Spatial distribution of elements, environmental effects, and economic potential of waste from the Aksu ferroalloy plant [Kazakhstan]

Abstract

The utilization or secondary use of technogenic waste is a relevant problem for the current economy. To assess the environmental influence and economic potential, it is necessary to study the elemental content of technogenic objects and to reveal the tendencies of the spatial distribution of elements, components, and indices such as the pollution coefficient. In this study, we performed elemental analysis, and calculation of indicators: average gross content, hazard quotients, concentration coefficients of metals, and total pollution coefficients of ground samples taken from the ash-slag storage of the Aksu ferroalloy plant [Aksu, Pavlodar region, Kazakhstan]. Maps of the spatial distribution of concentrations of elements and total pollution coefficients were created. The territory of the studied ash-slag storage by the level of soil contamination should be considered as an environmental disaster zone. The given statistical data on the number of oncological and respiratory diseases indirectly indicated the negative influence of open storage of ash-slag waste. The studied ground was of chromium-manganese geochemical specialization. The calculated volume of the accumulated waste mass by the approximating method was 1 054 638.0 m3. The calculated approximate weight of the accumulated waste was 23 679 576.0864 tons, including 1 822 972.2 tons of chromium, 1 727 354.0 tons of manganese, and 953 813.3 tons of iron. The large amounts of valuable components retained in the waste mass led us to conclude that the studied technogenic object can be considered as a secondary field to produce various technological products. Moreover, valuable metals can be extracted as metal concentrates.

The Method of Direct and Reverse Phase Portraits as a Tool for Systematizing the Results of Studies of Phase Transitions in Solutions of Thermosensitive Polymers

“…Namely, in the literature [ 141 , 142 , 143 , 144 , 145 ], it has been shown that the number of such stages can be different for different systems. Moreover, in other studies [ 143 , 144 , 145 , 162 , 163 ], it was shown that the staged nature of phase transitions can also be associated with fundamentally different processes. For example, for systems such as those studied in one study [ 144 ], it is determined by the formation of hydrophobic-hydrophilic associates (HHA), and for those studied in [ 145 ], it is determined by the formation of hydrophilic interpolymer associates (HIA).…”