The Comprehensive Utilization of Steel Slag in Agricultural Soils

Abstract

The use of metallurgical solid wastes such as steel slag, in agricultural activity, has become very important to contribute to reducing the accumulation of such wastes in the environment and to increase crop production. So, this chapter aims to emphasize the main aspects of the application of slags to soil chemical attributes as elevation of pH and neutralization of Al 3+ toxic in acid soils and increase nutrient content as phosphorus, calcium, magnesium, some micronutrients, and silicon. In addition, the advance in studies of the utilization of these residues in no-tillage systems in tropical soils will be discussed. Aspects related to monitoring the presence of heavy metals will be addressed.

Effect of liming of sod-podzolic soils with by-products of steel production on soil acidity and composition of wash water (column experiments)

“…Shilnikov et al (2011) generalized results of lysimetric studies over 25 years and have shown that to compensate for the natural removal of magnesium and calcium from soils, their annual intake of at least 400-450 kg / ha in terms of CaCO3 is required. Various researchers reported results of using steel slag in agriculture and showed that the correct application of these waste materials increase the pH in acidic soils, increase content of phosphorus, calcium and magnesium, as well as increase the content of silicon (Deus et al 2014;Mantovani et al 2016;Souza and Korndörfer 2010), thus ultimately contributing to the increase in crop yields (Deus et al 2018).…”