Abstract
Garnet tailings obtained in large quantities from molybdenum ore beneficiation are regarded as industrial waste, which not only occupies large areas of land but also causes environmental issues and ecological fines. Preparing garnet tailings based geopolymers (GTGs) is one of the efficient methods to recycle and utilize garnet mine tailings. In this work, geopolymers were synthesized using garnet tailing (GT) and metakaolin (MK) as the main precursors and sodium silicate as the alkali-activation agent. The effect of MK and alkali activator dosage, as well as curing temperature on the compression strength of GTGs were analyzed in detail. Results showed that the maximum strength (46 MPa, 3 days) was reached at a 20 wt % MK dosage with 35% sodium silicate addition cured at room temperature. The microstructure and phase composition of GTGs were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), which confirmed the formation of an amorphous geopolymer gel. Lastly, it can be concluded that the garnet tailing is a promising material for geopolymer production, as an alternative for its utilization.
Highlights
Mine tailing is mineral waste produced by the beneficiation process of ore.A series of problems appear from the storage and disposal of mine tailing, such as the occupation of large areas of land, contamination of surface and underground water by toxic metal leachates, as well as air pollution due to dust emissions [1,2,3,4]
The phase compositions, micro/nanostructure and morphology of raw mineral materials and geopolymer samples were characterized using X-ray diffraction collected from 10◦ to 70◦, 2◦ /min (XRD, Bruker AXS D8 Advance (Bruker, Billerica, MA, USA), CuKα-radiation produced at 40 KV and 40 mA, λ = 1.540598 Å), field-emission scanning electron microscopy operating at an accelerating voltage of 10 kV (SU8010, FESEM, Hitachi, Tokyo, Japan,) and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR, Nexus 670, Thermo Nicolet, MA, USA) spectroscopy with wavelengths from 600 to 4000 cm−1, respectively
The garnet tailings-based geopolymers compressive is much higher than that of pure geopolymers based on pure vanadium exhibit a 15fly
Summary
Mine tailing is mineral waste produced by the beneficiation process of ore (washing and flotation). Geopolymers are a new type of aluminosilicates with a three-dimensional (3D) amorphous or semi-crystalline micro-structure, which exhibit several important properties such as excellent mechanical properties, chemical and thermal stabilities, low cost and are environmentally friendly due to the low CO2 emission during preparation process [10,11,12,13,14]. These characteristics mentioned above make geopolymers have a potential application in construction materials, thermal insulator and surface capping. The phases and microstructure transformations during the geopolymerization process were analyzed by XRD, SEM and FTIR
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