The influence of biomaterial in the binder composition on the quality of reclaim from furan no-bake sands

The aim of this paper is to determine the influence of biomaterial in the binder composition on the quality of reclaim from furan no-bake sands. The biomaterial is introduced into the moulding sand in order to accelerate the biodegradation of post-regeneration dust and thus to reduce the amount of harmful waste from foundries in landfills. This addition, however, can’t deteriorate the technological properties of the moulding sand, including its ability to mechanical regeneration. Chemically bonded moulding sands are characterized by high ability to mechanical regeneration, which reduces the consumption of the raw material and costs related to their transport and storage. A side effect of the regeneration process is the formation of a large amount of post-regeneration dusts. According to the tendencies observed in recent years, moulding processes must meet high requirements connected to environmental protection including problems related to the disposal of generated wastes. A partial replacement of synthetic binding materials with biomaterials may be one of scientific research directions on the production of innovative foundry moulding and core sands. The conducted regeneration tests presented in this paper initially proved that biomaterial slightly decreases the quality of reclaim from moulding sand with its addition. However, its ability to regeneration increases with time of the process. In previous research authors tested biodegradability of the dust remaining after the regeneration process. The tests proved that moulding sand with biomaterial added at the stage of the production process is characterized by about three times better biodegradability than the same moulding sand without additive.