PRODUCER PROFILE
SteelPhalt Gives Steel Slag a Second Life
SteelPhalt’s new Cardiff plant, a Parker StarMix 4000, can produce up to 300,000 tonnes (330,693 tons) per year. In its inaugural year, the plant produced more than 150,000 tonnes (165,347 tons). BY SARAH REDOHL
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or more than three centuries, the city of Sheffield in the United Kingdom has had an international reputation for steel making. According to the UK’s Government News Network, the Sheffield region currently produces more steel by value than at any point in the city’s history. Although steel remains a primary industry in Sheffield, it’s also provided an opportunity for steel-related businesses to thrive. SteelPhalt, a Harsco Environmental company, has built a successful business making use of steel slag, a byproduct of steel making. Since 1963, SteelPhalt has been using steel slag aggregate to produce asphalt at its plant 7 miles northeast of Sheffield in Rotherham. Steel slag is a byproduct of steel making when molten steel is separated from impurities. Originally a molten liquid, the slag consists of a complex solution of silicates and oxides that solidifies upon cooling, according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).
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The FHWA estimates that between 7 and 7.5 million metric tons of steel slag is used within the U.S. each year, primarily as a granular base or an aggregate material in construction applications.
“From the beginning, our main purpose was to use the slag aggregate from the surrounding steel mills for asphalt projects in a 150-kilometer (93 miles) radius from our Rotherham plant,” said Julian Smith, SteelPhalt’s global strategic growth director. “That’s what we’ve been doing ever since.” For more than five decades, SteelPhalt grew gradually, consistently and organically. Then, starting three years ago, the company began to grow exponentially as a result of increasing demand for more environmentally conscious products.
