Developing circular concrete: Acid treatment of waste concrete fines
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Published version
Author(s)
Ding, Tiejun
Wong, Hong
Qiao, Xiuchen
Cheeseman, Christopher
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The development of circular concrete, to enable key components to be extracted and reused, is a key requirement to achieve sustainability in the built environment. Current industry practice for end-of-life concrete is best described as down-cycling because recycled concrete aggregate has limited use, with disposal of the associated crushed concrete fines. Acid treatment of waste concrete is being investigated to allow key concrete components to become circular and, in this work, the effect of acetic acid concentration, liquid/solid (L/S) ratio, reaction time and temperature on the leaching of waste concrete fines is reported. An acid concentration of 0.6 mol/L, an L/S ratio of 7 ml/g, and a reaction time of 6 h at ambient temperature allows clean sand to be extracted from concrete fines. This performs identically to new sand in mortar samples. We show for the first time that the dried and ground silica-rich residue produced by acid leaching has pozzolanic properties comparable to commercially available supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) such as blast furnace slag and coal fly ash. The potential for CO2 sequestration using the Ca2+-rich leached solution to form CaCO3 is calculated. The research shows that acid leaching of concrete fines can produce clean reusable sand, generates a viable SCM and sequester significant amounts of CO2 by forming precipitated calcium carbonate.
Date Issued
2022-09-10
Date Acceptance
2022-06-05
Citation
Journal of Cleaner Production, 2022, 365, pp.1-8
ISSN
0959-6526
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Start Page
1
End Page
8
Journal / Book Title
Journal of Cleaner Production
Volume
365
Copyright Statement
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
License URL
Identifier
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652622022144?via%3Dihub
Subjects
Environmental Sciences
0907 Environmental Engineering
0910 Manufacturing Engineering
0915 Interdisciplinary Engineering
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
132615
Date Publish Online
2022-06-16