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Mineral Wool Waste - From on-site Analysis to Recycling

Mineral wool waste has become increasingly challenging to manage within the Austrian waste management system. At present, the only available option for mineral wool waste of unknown origin is landfilling, as there are no existing recycling options.

The presence of respirable fibers represents a potential health risk associated with this waste, but also the landfilling of mineral wool waste leads to technical difficulties due to the material's large volume and low bulk density. Considering these challenges, research activities have recently intensified with the objective of identifying possible recycling options, enabling the creation of closed loop solutions. As it is of critical importance that glass wool and stone wool are separated regarding most future recycling routes, the mixed mineral wool waste must be segregated at the point of collection prior to any potential future recycling process. This article presents the results of an on-site investigation of mineral wool waste carried out by manual sorting and analyses using handheld X-ray fluorescence (XRF) as well as mobile laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS). It also provides an overview of the research activities conducted in the area of mineral wool waste recycling over recent years.