How to supress Pyrophoresis - steaming iron

Now that the professionals in sci.chem, and sci.environment.waste
weren't able to furnish neither clever answers nor solutions, let me
repost it with the real, the dedicated to the core specialists, the
environmentalists:

Machining (turning, shaping, grinding, etc) of steel parts generates
iron wastes (chips, spirals, fines) containing small amounts of lubes
as mineral oils, glycols and fatty acid amid/amines and water.
This iron waste is drained to form sludge cakes that are accumulated
in a wet condition in huge piles in open transporter bins (30x12x5 ft).
When full, the stuff is hauled to the steel manufacturers for recycling.

In all too many cases whenever the stuff is laying there for some
weeks it gets so hot that steam and stink begins to rise from the pile.
Clearly it's the reaction of the steel with the water.

Question: what can be done to prevent this nasty steam occurrence?
Out of the question are: Drying, Watering, Covering or Diluting with sand.
Any ideas anybody?

Iron reacts very slowly with water, it should not produce
such amounts of heat to form steam. I don't think steel would
be more reactive.

Is the metal heated by an external source? Those fatty acids, specially
wen mixed with amines (nitrogen source) may be a suitable medium
for bacterial growing. This would account for stinking.

"hanson" <[Only registered users see links. ]> escreveu na mensagem
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On Tue, 09 Sep 2003 16:40:20 GMT, "hanson" <[Only registered users see links. ]> wrote:



seems to be a bacterial sludge generating heat.
and the stink


Try bleach/Chlorine