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This paper is mainly focused on the characterisation of a glass material (GM) obtained from the thermal treatment of a bottom ash (BA) produced at the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) incineration plant of Valorsul. By melting the BA at 1400ºC during 2 hours, and without using any chemical additives, a homogeneous black-coloured glass was obtained. The thermal and mechanical properties of this glass were characterised. The thermal expansion coefficient, measured by dilatometry, was 9-10 x 10-6 per ºC and the modulus of rupture, determined by four-point bending test, was 75±6 MPa, which are similar values to those exhibited by commercial soda-lime-silica glasses used in structural applications. The chemical and the ecotoxicological leaching behaviour of the GM were also analysed. The GM was submitted to a leaching procedure composed of 15 sequential extraction cycles. A liquid/solid (L/S) ratio of 2 l/kg was applied in each cycle. The leachates were filtered through a membrane of PTFE (porosity: 0.45 µm). The filtered leachates were characterised for different chemical parameters and for an ecotoxicological indicator (bacterium Vibrio fischeri). The GM was also submitted to a microwave acidic digestion for the assessment of the total metal content. The crude BA was also submitted to the same experimental procedures. The GM showed levels of chemical emission and ecotoxicity for V. fischeri much lower than those determined for the crude BA. Similar characterisation studies will be pursued with the glass-ceramics produced by adequate thermal treatment of the glass, in order to investigate the effect of the crystallization on the final properties.

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The notion of the Abelian kernel of a finite monoid is a generalization of that of the derived subgroup of a finite group. A monoid $M$ is then called solvable if its chain of Abelian kernels terminates with the submonoid of $M$ generated by its idempotents. The main result of this paper is that the finite idempotent commuting monoids bearing this property are precisely those whose subgroups are solvable. In particular any finite aperiodic monoid is Abelian-solvable in this sense. A generalization of the main result of this paper has been published [in Int. J. Algebra Comput. 14, No. 5-6, 655-665 (2004; Zbl 1081.20067)] by the authors and ıt S. Margolis and ıt B. Steinberg.