Jarosite characteristics and its utilisation potentials

During metallic zinc extraction from zinc sulphide or sulphide ore, huge quantity of jarosite is being released universally as solid residues. The jarosite mainly contains iron, sulphur, zinc, calcium, lead, cadmium and aluminium. Jarosite released from such industrial process is complex and its quality and quantity make the task more complex for safe disposal. Apart from water contamination, jarosite already accumulated and its increasing annual production is a major source of pollution for surrounding environment including soil, vegetation and aquatic life and hence its disposal leads to major concern because of the stringent environmental protection regulations. An attempt was made to evaluate the characteristics of Indian jarosite with an objectives to understand its potentials for recycling and utilising as raw materials for developing value added products. Sand and Coal Combustion Residues (CCRs) was used as an admixture to attain good workability and detoxify the toxic substance in the jarosite. Result revealed that jarosite is silty clay loam in texture having 63.48% silt sized and 32.35% clay sized particles. The particle size of jarosite (D90=16.21+/-0.20 microm) is finer than the CCRs (D90=19.72+/-0.18 microm). The jarosite is nonuniform in structure and shape as compared to the CCRs having spherical, hollow shaped and some of them are cenosphere in nature. The major mineral phase of jarosite is Potassium Iron Sulphate Hydroxide {KFe3(SO4)2(OH)6}and Iron Sulphate Hydrate {2 Fe2O3SO3 x 5 H2O}. In CCRs the dominant phases are quartz {SiO2}, mullite {3 Al2O3 x 2 SiO2} and hematite {Fe2O3}. The high electrical conductivity of jarosite (13.26+/-0.437 dS/m) indicates that the presence of cations and anions are predominant over CCRs (0.498+/-0.007 dS/m). The major portion of jarosite consists of iron (23.66+/-0.18%), sulphur (12.23+/-0.2%) and zinc (8.243+/-0.075%). But CCRs main constituents are silicon (27.41+/-0.74%), aluminium (15.167+/-0.376%) and iron (4.447+/-0.69%). The other constituents such as calcium, aluminium, silicon, lead, and manganese are also present in the range of 0.5 to 5%. Heavy metals such as copper, chromium, and cadmium are found higher in jarosite as compared to the CCRs. The statistically designed experimental trials revealed that the density, water absorption capacity and compressive strength of fired jarosite bricks are 1.51 gm/cm3, 17.46% and 43.4 kg/cm2 respectively with jarosite sand mixture in the ratio of 3:1 indicating the potentials in developing building materials.