Steelmaking Slag Recycling as Raw Material and Its Effect on Burning Temperature of Portland Cement Clinker Production
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 36, Issue 2
Abstract
The valorization of industrial wastes plays a significant aspect in decreasing the environmental pollution. The discussed study concerns the recovery of steelmaking slag (SS), produced by a local steel plant, to make this by-product a raw material for portland cement clinker production. A lab study looks at this slag’s influence on the raw meal reaction capacity and technological parameters (temperature and burning time). Two clinkers were tested, the first is representative of portland cement clinker made in a cement plant, while the second is a clinker made in our laboratory in which SS replaces the pyrites residue used in the first. The raw meals were determined for the second clinker using different lime saturation factors from 0.89 to 0.95, while in the first clinker, lime saturation was 0.89. Chemical and mineralogical analysis and microscopic examination revealed that the usage of SS did not affect the resulting portland cement clinker. This slag enables a gain of 100°C on the clinkering temperature, usually 1,450°C, and shortens the burning time by 10 min. The main clinker phases (, , , and ) are present, with very few free-CaO, about 0.3%. The results of the physico-mechanical tests showed that adding SS had no impact on the cement’s quality. With a final compressive strength at 28-day of 43.5 MPa, the cement obtained satisfies the requirements for inclusion in Algeria’s CEM I 42.5 strength class.
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Data Availability Statement
The data used and obtained during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to express their thanks to the staff of the laboratory of LGCGM-INSA in Rennes (France), El-Hadjar steel company (Algeria), Algeria’s Hamma Bouziane cement plant, and the University of Constantine (Algeria); for their assistance in the realization, i.e., XRD for steelmaking slag, chemical compositions, SEM observations, and XRD for clinkers, respectively.
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Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 36 • Issue 2 • February 2024
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© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Feb 6, 2023
Accepted: Jul 13, 2023
Published online: Nov 16, 2023
Published in print: Feb 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Apr 16, 2024
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