Laboratory of Processing Industrial Waste

The Laboratory of Industrial Waste Processing (LSPO) is a joint workplace of the Institute of Recycling Technologies FMMR TUKE and ŽP Výskumno-vyvojové centrum s.r.o. cooperating on a contractual basis. The intention to build a modern Laboratory arose from a social order to fulfill the recommendations of the European Commission and at the same time to solve the necessity of material recycling of an industrial waste.

The Laboratory was established at the 5th International scientific conference Waste – secondary raw materials, which took place on June 4-7, 2013 in Liptovský Ján. Agreement on the establishment of LSPO is an important step and follows on from long-term mutual cooperation in the field of research and development of waste processing from steel production at ironworks ŽP, a.s. The Laboratory creates a space for close cooperation between the school and practice, providing suitable technical and material conditions for the implementation of research and development in the field of metal-bearing waste recycling.

The purpose and goal of the Laboratory is the integration of research capacities into a common platform enabling effective research, development and innovative business in the field of obtaining and processing secondary raw materials, primarily solving current problems of business practice and accelerating the transfer of science and research results into practice in the form of specific innovative projects.

The Laboratory solves the tasks of basic and applied research on the material recycling of industrial waste, while:

• solves the tasks of creating and using databases in material recycling of waste,
• collects, registers and publish the results of scientific works in this area,
• provides consulting and expertise,
• verifies the feasibility of processes on a laboratory, semi-operational and operational scale,
• develops know-how according to the order of a customer,
• solves domestic and international scientific research projects,
• focuses on solving the strategic tasks of the issue of industrial waste of metallurgical plants.

In 2014, The Laboratory won the prestigious Waste Management Award "Golden Ant 2013" in the category "Innovative solution". In 2014, LSPO won another award at the international conference Environmental Protection Technology, the TOP 2014 award – 2nd place in the category "Environmental technology.

In 2023, the Laboratory celebrates its 10th anniversary. During this period The Laboratory was successful in the following areas:

• build a pilot semi-operational facility for hydrometallurgical processing of industrial waste,
• implement 13 research tasks from the following areas:
• Solving the problem of dust processing from the electric arc furnace in ironworks Železiarne Podbrezová a.s.,
• Material recycling of steelmaking waste,
• The issue of purity of secondary raw materials,
• organized joint professional seminars:
• Year 2015: "Recycling technologies of secondary raw materials"
• Years 2016, 2018, 2019: "Material recycling of industrial waste"
• published more than 60 scientific publications,
• students solved more than 20 final bachelors’, diploma and doctoral theses,
• prepared experts for practice.

A significant result is also the application of a product from the hydrometallurgical processing of dust from an electric arc furnace in the form of a product: a semiconductor component – a varistor. This component has been registered as a utility model: Semiconductor component (varistor) made from ZnO obtained by recycling of industrial waste, Application number: 50037-2022, Document number: 9685, 25/01/2023.

Contact:
Assoc. Prof. Dusan Orac, PhD.- Director of the Institute
Tel: (+421) 055 602 24 28
Email:dusan.orac@tuke.sk