Possible use of waste serpentine from Abdasht chromite mines into the refractory and ceramic industries

There are approximately 20.5 million tons of waste rocks in Abdasht chromite mines which might cause considerable environmental problems in the near future. Serpentine is one of the most important rocks that can be abundantly found in this mine. In this work, the waste serpentine was processed by dry magnetic drum separator. Chemical analysis showed high content of MgO in the non-magnetic fraction (NMF) serpentine that reached to 47.85% after calcining at 1050 °C. The XRD result revealed that antigorite was the main phase of the NMF-serpentine while the major phase of the samples fired at 1050-1650 °C was forsterite. Considerable water absorption after 2 h dwell time at 1650 °C, indicated high refractoriness and high sintering temperature of the waste serpentine from Abdasht mines. These results proved the potential capability of waste serpentine from Abdasht mines as a raw material to be used in high temperature refractory and ceramic products.