UTILIZATION OF SULFUR SLUDGE RESULTS FROM MANUFACTURING OF SULFURIC ACID

Abstract

ABSTRACT During sulfuric acid manufacturing, huge quantity of wastes is being generated and causes major environmental problems for their storage and disposal. On the other hand, fertilizer industry is an important industry for assessing the plant requirements. But this industry faces a serious problem of fertilizer product stabilization under the handling and storage conditions. Therefore, in this study attempts were made for solving these problems; these attempts were achieved by using sulfur sludge wastes as conditioner; sulfur sludge is internal conditioner A number of compound fertilizer (NPK fertilizer) formulations based on sulfur sludge as a filler have been prepared. The main physico-chemical properties of the prepared formulations, such as chemical composition, granulometric composition and crushing strength of granules were examined by standard methods. A comparative study with the other fertilizer formulations that containing phosphogypsum filler, bentonite clay filler and containing no fillers was done. The results showed that the prepared formulations using sulfur sludge as filler exhibited improvement in NPK fertilizers quality which notified in terms of physical and chemical characteristics compared with the reference NPK fertilizers (containing no fillers) and those containing phosphogypsum filler and bentonite clay filler. This improvement in NPK fertilizers quality is considered an evidence of the positive effect of sulfur sludge waste on the NPK fertilizers industry hand-in-hand with the environmental protection and the plant nutrition.