Shock wave tech­nol­o­gy can be used for a selec­tive treat­ment of dif­fer­ent met­al­lur­gi­cal slags. Sep­a­rat­ing and con­cen­trat­ing the valu­able mate­ri­als from mul­ti-phase sys­tems like met­al slags allows an eas­i­er fur­ther pro­cess­ing of these mate­ri­als and for a bet­ter eco­nom­ic and eco­log­i­cal recycling.

By gen­er­at­ing high-volt­age dis­charges under water, the frag­ment­ing effect can be specif­i­cal­ly direct­ed to hit the mate­r­i­al inter­faces and focus on the tran­si­tions between the min­er­alog­i­cal phas­es of the slag.

The schock wave process enables the para­me­ters to be specif­i­cal­ly adapt­ed to the mate­r­i­al com­po­si­tion and the spe­cif­ic require­ments of the respec­tive mate­ri­als. As a result, con­t­a­m­i­nants stored in slag can be exposed and then eas­i­ly sep­a­rat­ed, which results in a vari­ety of new approach­es in the met­al­lur­gi­cal post-pro­cess­ing and the eco­nom­ic uti­liza­tion of the mate­ri­als. The pro­ce­dure allows the process para­me­ters to be adapt­ed to the com­po­si­tion and spe­cif­ic require­ments of each mate­r­i­al. As a result, impu­ri­ties embed­ded in slag can be exposed and then eas­i­ly sep­a­rat­ed, which results in a vari­ety of new approach­es in the met­al­lur­gi­cal post-pro­cess­ing and the eco­nom­ic uti­liza­tion of the materials.

This inno­v­a­tive pro­cess­ing approach is par­tic­u­lar­ly suit­able for met­al­lur­gi­cal inter­me­di­ates from iron, zinc and steel refin­ing metallurgy.