Biocidal Corrosion-Resistant Composite Coatings from Industrial Waste

The opportunity of using the electroplating industry metal-containing waste for creating a biocidal building material has been researched. The research of chemical composition of the waste has evidenced the presence of salts of heavy metals, such as zinc, copper, nickel, chrome, lead and others. By means of biotesting methods the toxicity of not only pure salts of these metals, but wastes, containing these metal compounds in various amounts, to microfungi, bacteria and algae, was confirmed. In order to concentrate the active component in the designed product the waste was modified by chemical activation methods based on transforming this or that component into soluble or insoluble fraction. It was noted that the acetic acid treatment of waste results in various alterations in its composition, which allows doubling, at an average, the biocidal activity of materials, which can be evaluated by the size of fungicidity area when using microfungi as test objects, and by the quantity of the killed organisms when testing the materials on bacteria and algae.