Reuse of waste glass as a supplementary binder and aggregate for sustainable cement-based construction materials: A review

Abstract

Safe disposal of the huge amount of waste glass has become a serious environmental concern in many countries. On the other hand, production of concrete uses huge amount of natural resources and adds greenhouse gases to the environment. Therefore, researchers have been working on the reuse of waste glass as a supplementary cementitious material (SCM) and aggregate in the production of cement mortar and concrete. This paper reviews the mechanical and durability properties of mortar and concrete using waste glass as partial replacements of cement and natural sand. The optimum proportions of waste glass as in cement based construction materials in different ways have been identified and critically discussed by the analysis of experimental data available in various published literatures. It was found that the properties of glass powder blended cement mortar or concrete are mainly dependent on several factors such as particle size, replacement level, colour and type of the glass and curing age and curing temperature. The use of glass powder significantly improved the mechanical and durability properties of cement mortar and concrete when the particle size of glass powder is less than 45 μm and cement replacement rate is about 10–40%. It was also observed that glass fine aggregate can be used as up to 100% of the fine aggregate in mortar and concrete without negative effects on mechanical and durability properties when the particle size is less than 1 mm. The combined use of glass as SCM and fine aggregate reduced the mechanical properties of cementitious systems; however, improved some durability properties. Moreover, the current research progress on waste glass mixed cementitious systems is critically reviewed and some future research is recommended.