Feasibility of Using Lead–Zinc Tailings to Produce Environmentally Friendly Ceramisite
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 33, Issue 11
Abstract
There are large volumes of lead-zinc tailings (LZT) produced in China and elsewhere in the world. LZT disposal to the landfill is problematic and causes many environmental issues. The objective of this work is to demonstrate how LZT can be effectively used to produce ceramisite. The experimental results show that the LZT alone is not suitable for making ceramisite. When mixed with clay, it can be turned into ceramisite with ideal properties for building applications. The optimization test results reported herein show that priority order of factors affecting the compressive strength of cylinder samples is, in turn, sintering temperature sintering time () content (). The order of factors influencing the density is . The results show that the leaching content of Pb and Zn of all sintered ceramisite samples is far less than the limit values of hazardous components in the leachate specified in the relevant standard. The optimum combination of parameters to produce ceramisite is 50% LZT content, at sintering temperature of 1,150°C and sintering time of 9 min. Under the optimum conditions, the compressive strength and apparent density of ceramisite have reached 9.9 MPa and respectively. The results indicate that ceramisite can effectively be made using LTZ for civil engineering applications.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published article.
Acknowledgments
This research acknowledges the financial support from the University of Melbourne and the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Early Career Researcher Grant (DE170100165, DE 2017 R1).
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Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 33 • Issue 11 • November 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 28, 2020
Accepted: Mar 8, 2021
Published online: Aug 20, 2021
Published in print: Nov 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jan 20, 2022
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Cited by
- Rui Li, Ziyi Yin, Hang Lin, Research Status and Prospects for the Utilization of Lead–Zinc Tailings as Building Materials, Buildings, 10.3390/buildings13010150, 13, 1, (150), (2023).