A Statistical Approach for Optimizing the Properties of Industrial Waste

Disposal of the waste material is major concern for industries. Red mud is an example of industrial waste having no effective waste recovery. About 1 ton of alumina is produced from 3 tons of bauxite and about 1 ton aluminium is produced from 2 tons of alumina. Depending on the raw material processed, 1-1.5 tons of red mud is generated per ton of alumina produced. The cost of red mud disposal is expensive, accounting for about 2% of the alumina price. Waste foundry sand is another industrial waste produced during No-bake sand system. On an average 1 ton of casting produced by No-bake process generates about 1.5-2 tons of waste foundry sand. In the present work, the waste material of foundry together with red mud is used as an aggregate to develop certain value added product by mechanical and thermal treatments. An attempt has been made in this work to use both these products together with a view to study their characteristics in the as-received conditions followed by experimentation based on the statistical principle governing Taguchi and ANOVA techniques. This work assesses the behavior of a predetermined shaped compact while sintering with optimization of the process parameters. The study revealed that the temperature and time of sintering have a significant effect on the compressive strength, water absorption and apparent porosity .Sintered product has a pH of 8.17 which is very close to the neutral value. Index Terms Red mud, Foundry waste, Taguchi and ANOVA