Elsevier

Powder Technology

Volume 362, 15 February 2020, Pages 149-156
Powder Technology

Adding ceramic polishing waste as paste substitute to improve sulphate and shrinkage resistances of mortar

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.powtec.2019.11.117Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Re-use of ceramic polishing waste as paste substitute in mortar is proposed.

  • Such usage decreases not only waste disposal but also cement consumption.

  • Such usage also improves strength, sulphate resistance and shrinkage resistance.

Abstract

Ceramic polishing waste (CPW) is a solid waste generated during the polishing process of ceramic tiles. Its disposal as waste has been causing lots of environmental problems. In this study, the authors made an attempt to reutilize the CPW in mortar as paste substitute (substituting part of the paste without changing the paste compositions) and a series of mortar mixes containing various CPW, cement and water contents were made for conducting the sulphate attack test and drying shrinkage test. The test results showed that as paste substitute, the CPW added can significantly enhance the compressive strength, sulphate resistance and shrinkage resistance of mortar, and at same time substantially cut down the cement demand to lower the carbon footprint. Regression analysis also revealed that for strength enhancement, the cementing efficiency factor of the CPW was as high as 1.10, whereas for sulphate resistance enhancement, the cementing efficiency factor was about 0.69.

Graphical abstract

Adding CPW as paste substitute would not only improve sulphate and shrinkage resistances, but also reduce cement content.

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Introduction

In building construction, ceramic tiles/panels are indispensable construction materials [1,2]. However, the production of ceramic tiles/panels is generally associated with large amounts of ceramic wastes [[3], [4], [5]]. For instance, China is the largest producer of ceramic tiles in the world and generates 10 million tons of ceramic polishing waste a year [6] whereas Brazil is the second largest producer of ceramic tiles in the word and generates 60 thousand tons of ceramic polishing waste a year [7]. In addition, building demolition also generates a huge quantity of ceramic wastes [[8], [9], [10]]. How to deal with these wastes, which are mostly just dumped to landfills, has become a key environmental issue. Currently, some of the ceramic wastes are being reutilized in concrete production by adopting the cement substitution method or aggregate substitution method.

For the cement substitution method, a portion of the cementing materials is substituted by ceramic waste [7,11,12]. This has certain effects on the strength, durability and shrinkage of the concrete produced. Pacheco-Torgal and Jalali [13] used four types of ceramic fines to substitute 20% of cement and found that such addition of ceramic fines would reduce the compressive strength, but improve the water and chloride resistances of the concrete. Vejmelková et al. [14] revealed that adding fine-ground ceramics as cement substitute by not more than 40% has no negative effects on the chemical resistances of concrete in Na2SO4 and MgCl2 solutions. Steiner et al. [15] reported that the autogenous shrinkage of cement paste would be substantially decreased when ceramic polishing residues were applied to partially replace cement. However, Cheng et al. [16] demostrated that concrete with ceramic polishing powder added as cement substitute has lower carbonation resistance compared to normal concrete. Moreover, Penteado et al. [17] noted that the usage of porcelain tile waste as cement substitute would impair the compressive strength and water resistance of paving blocks.

For the aggregate substitution method, a portion of the aggregate is substituted by ceramic waste [[18], [19], [20], [21]]. This has somewhat different effects on the properties of the concrete produced. Pacheco-Torgal and Jalali [13] found that concretes with ceramic waste added to replace part of the natural fine or coarse aggregate have better compressive strength, water resistance and chloride resistance than normal concrete. Siddique et al. [22] demostrated that the addition of fine bone china ceramic aggregate as sand substitute can substantially improve the freezing-thawing and drying-wetting resistances of concrete. However, Gonzalez-Corominas and Etxeberria [23] showed that the capillary absorption coefficient and ultrasonic pulse velocity of concrete containing 30% fine ceramic aggregate as substitute of natural sand were worse than those of normal concrete. Likewise, Medina et al. [24] reported that the chloride penetration was slightly higher in concretes containing 20% or 25% ceramic sanitary ware coarse aggregate.

Apart from the above cement substitution and aggregate substitution methods, the authors' team has established a new method, called the “paste substitution method”, for adding fine fillers or solid wastes. The strategy of this method is to substitute a portion of the cement paste (cement + water) by fillers or solid wastes without changing the water/cement (W/C) ratio of the cement paste. In recent years, this method has been successfully applied to limestone fines [25,26], marble dust [27,28], granite dust [29,30]. The results obtained so far revealed that this method has the benefits of higher strength, durability and dimensional stability, larger recycle of waste, and lower cement consumption and carbon emission. For further exploration, another comprehensive research programme on the possible use of ceramic polishing waste (CPW) as paste substitute was launched, as presented herein. The aims were to appraise the roles of CPW as paste substitute in the strength, sulphate resistance and shrinkage resistance of the mortar produced.

Section snippets

Raw materials

The cement used was a P·O 42.5 grade ordinary Portland cement (OPC) meeting with the Chinese Standard GB 175–2007 specification [31]. A local river sand with water absorption of 1.10%, moisture content of 0.10% and maximum particle size of 1.18 mm was employed as the fine aggregate. The specific gravities of the cement and fine aggregate were 3.10 and 2.58, respectively. No other cementing materials and larger size aggregates were added.

The ceramic polishing waste (CPW) was provided by a

Cement content

The cement content of each mortar mixture is given in the third column of Table 1. It is observed that the cement content would slightly decrease with the increase of W/C ratio. More significantly, the cement content substantially decreased with the increase of CPW volume. To depict the effectiveness of adding CPW as cement paste substitute in reducing the cement content, the percentage reduction in cement content attributed to the substitution of cement paste by CPW has been calculated and

Improved performance at reduced cement content

The above enhancements in sulphate resistance and shrinkage resistance were obtained simultaneously with reduction of cement content. To exhibit the concurrent variations in sulphate resistance or shrinkage resistance and cement consumption, the strength loss due to sulphate attack and the ultimate shrinkage due to long term drying are plotted against the cement content for different W/C ratios and CPW volumes in Figs. 7 and 8, respectively. The figures depict that the decrease of W/C ratio

Conclusions

For studying the possible reutilization of ceramic polishing waste (CPW) in mortar production so as to minimize the waste disposal and decrease the cement consumption, and hopefully also to improve the performance in terms of strength, durability and dimensional stability, a comprehensive research programme had been launched. Unlike the conventional methods of reutilizing the solid waste as cement or aggregate substitute, the CPW was herein added as paste substitute. The performance attributes

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project Nos. 51608131 and 51808134), Featured and Innovative Project for Colleges and Universities of Guangdong Province (Project No. 2017KTSCX061) and Pearl River S&T Nova Program of Guangzhou City (Project No. 201906010064).

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