High Temperature Treatment to Improve Hydrolytic Stability of Mine Tailing-Based Geopolymer Bricks
Publication: Geo-Congress 2024
ABSTRACT
Reuse of mine tailings is a growing area of research, and one possible reuse strategy is the creation of geopolymer bricks. Geopolymerization uses a strong alkaline solution to break down the source material into alumina and silica monomers, which are then consolidated and cured into a strong, solid sample. However, a well-known and existing challenge in performance of tailings-based geopolymers is the poor hydrolytic stability (i.e., durability in water). To improve this property, a high temperature treatment was applied to geopolymers made from 85% gold mine tailings and 15% fly ash type F. The geopolymer bricks were heated to 600°C for 6 h, which densified the pore structure and improved the performance of samples in water. The compressive strength retention was improved from 55% to 83%, and samples exhibited nearly zero mass loss during water immersion for seven days. This technique can be generalized to geopolymers made from any type of low-reactivity source material, though further testing is needed to determine the beneficial effect for other mix designs.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Geo-Congress 2024
Pages: 96 - 105
History
Published online: Feb 22, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Bricks
- Building materials
- Engineering fundamentals
- Engineering materials (by type)
- Environmental engineering
- Hydration
- Laminating
- Materials engineering
- Materials processing
- Measurement (by type)
- Mine wastes
- Pollutants
- Polymer
- Synthetic materials
- Temperature effects
- Temperature measurement
- Wastes
- Water sampling
- Water treatment
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