Proposal of plant for the treatment of cement-asbestos slabs (eternit) and recycle as raw material for ceramic pigments

Because of its outstanding physical and technological properties, asbestos has been widely used in the past for several industrial applications in all the industrialized countries such as Italy. Asbestos in Italy was one of the main raw materials for cements (the well known cement-asbestos or eternit). Nowadays it is generally accepted that asbestos is a priority substance for health hazard and one of the main concerns is the recover of the areas which contain asbestos and the buildings built with cement-asbestos. In this work we will define the conditions for the thermal inertization of the raw cement-asbestos slabs, define the main characteristics of an industrial plant for the thermal treatment of asbestos, estimate its production capacity. In addition, we will indicate a possible use of the treated product (recycle) as raw material for traditional bulk ceramic pigments.