Slag granulation
Under slag granulation refers to the processing of the resulting in the melting process of pig iron blast furnace slag.
The slag granulation was introduced in 1892 at the Friedrichshütte in Herdorf in the Altenkirchen district of Rhineland-Palatinate by the then technical manager Ferdinand Schneider. The slag floating above the molten pig iron in the blast furnace was led outside through a channel and disintegrated into sand in a water bath. The sand produced during this process, also known as slag sand , was initially deposited on a dump. Today this sand is used as an aggregate in cement production. During this process, the process water absorbs sulfur and other minerals from the slag and thus has a healing effect similar to that of the water in known therapeutic baths. Bathing facilities that are operated with this water are called slag baths . The disadvantage is that the process water in Germany must not be discharged directly into water because of its pollution.