Abstract
The construction industry has already begun the transition to circular economy and intensive research has been conducted over the last decades at laboratory scale to assess the potential use of waste in ceramic applications. However, industrial trials to prove its scale up have been performed to a lesser extent. This work studies the effect of trial scale on the technological and environmental properties of high quality ceramic products incorporating Waelz slag (WS), an industrial by-product from the recovery of electric arc furnace dust. To this aim, three groups of ceramics have been produced varying the WS content and the process parameters, moulding water and pressure, at laboratory and industrial scale. Preliminary laboratory scale tests were used to optimize WS content and process conditions using the software GAMS (General Algebraic Modeling System). Optimum ceramic products were processed at both laboratory and industrial scale and tested for their technological and environmental properties. Results from the laboratory and industrial trials were compared to evaluate the scale effect on the ceramic properties. The introduction of WS in clay bricks seems to be easily scaled-up for additions of WS ≤ 10wt%, but higher percentages of WS promotes relevant differences in the properties of the laboratory and industrial bricks.
Highlights
The construction industry has already begun the transition to circular economy and intensive research has been conducted over the last decades at laboratory scale to assess the potential use of waste in ceramic applications
The different roles that the wastes may play in the ceramic process, make possible to obtain ceramic products fulfilling the quality requirements established by the recent Construction Products Regulation (CPR)[8]
In the same way to the results found in the preliminary lab-trial, both firing shrinkage (LFS) and weight loss (WL) of the ceramic products decrease with the Waelz slag (WS) content which has a significant effect in the bulk density (BD) that increases with the WS content
Summary
The construction industry has already begun the transition to circular economy and intensive research has been conducted over the last decades at laboratory scale to assess the potential use of waste in ceramic applications. Apart from the heterogeneity of raw materials and products requirements, are considered as good potential receptors for the recycling of wastes due to the different roles that they can play in the ceramic process: fluxing agents, fillers, clay substitutes, body fuels, pore formers and other properties affecting wastes. These roles are directly related to the chemical and mineralogical composition of the materials. The CPR addresses health and environment aspects of the ceramic products, including the potential release of dangerous substances to soil and water during entire lifecycle useful life and at the end of its life
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