Properties of Steel Mill Sludge Waste Incorporated in Fired Clay Brick

Abstract

Brick is one of the most common masonry units as a building material due to its properties. Many attempts have been made to incorporate different types of sludge waste into brick such as marble sludge, stone sludge, water treatment sludge, sewage sludge, desalination sludge, textile laundry sludge, ceramic sludge and steel mill sludge. SMS is waste that produced from steel manufacturing industry. This sludge is normally disposed at a hazardous waste landfill site. The objective of this study is to investigate the properties of sludge waste incorporated in fired clay brick. The characteristic of heavy metals in steel mill sludge were determined by using XRF. Characteristic of steel mill sludge shows that some of the heavy metals in steel mill sludge shows higher concentration by following this descending order Zn>Cu>Pb>Sn>Cr>Ba. Four different mixing ratios of steel mill sludge at (0%, 5%, 10%, 15%) were incorporated into fired clay brick to obtain the properties and compared with control brick and standards. In this study, physical and mechanical properties such as shrinkage, density, initial rate of suction and compressive strength test were conducted in the laboratory. Through this study, the results indicate that addition of 5% steel mill sludge into bricks shows the best quality of brick with high compressive strength (16.78N/mm2) and low initial rate of suction (3.80 g/mm2). Nevertheless, the density and shrinkage for all bricks still comply with the requirement and suitable for different work applications. Furthermore, by incorporating sludge waste into fired clay brick could provide an environmental friendly way of disposal method.