Recycled Concrete Aggregates (RCAs) have inferior qualities compared with natural aggregates, mainly attributed to the porous nature of the attached cement mortar. To improve the quality of the RCAs, an environmentally friendly and cost-effective method is proposed to treat RCAs in this study. In this method, RCAs are first soaked in acetic acid solution, in which the acetic acid reacts with cement hydration products attached to the surface of the RCAs. This reaction weakens the attached mortar, making it possible to remove it from the RCAs by mechanical rubbing later. The treated RCAs have lower water absorption and less cement mortar attached. Once used as aggregates in new concrete, these RCAs can enhance the compressive strength of the concrete at 28 days up to 25%. It is safe and clean to apply this new method since no dangerous chemical is used and no detrimental chemicals are introduced into the treated RCAs. More importantly, zero hazardous waste solution is

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Sudden falls of large-area hard roofs in a mined area release a large amount of elastic energy, generate dynamic loads, and cause disasters such as impact ground pressure and gas outbursts. To address these problems, in this study, the sleeve fracturing method (SFM) was applied to weaken a hard roof. The numerical simulation software FLAC3D was used to develop three models based on an analysis of the SFM working mechanism. These models were applied to an analysis of the fracturing effects of various factors such as the borehole diameter, hole spacing, and sleeve pressure. Finally, the results of a simulation were validated using experiments with similar models. Our research indicated the following: (1) The crack propagation directions in the models were affected by the maximum principal stress and hole spacing. When the borehole diameter was fixed, the fracturing pressure increased with increasing hole spacing. In contrast, when the fracturing pressure was fixed, the fracturing range increased with increasing borehole diameter; (2) The most ideal fracturing effect was found at a fracturing pressure of 17.6 MPa in the model with a borehole diameter of 40 mm and hole spacing of 400 mm. The results showed that it is possible to regulate the falls of hard roofs using the SFM. This research may provide a theoretical basis for controlling hard roofs in mining.

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A recent study showed that the properties of recycled concrete aggregates (RCAs) can be significantly improved by acetic acid treatment. This study demonstrates that a useful product, vaterite, a metastable polymorph of calcium carbonate, can be produced from the waste solution of this treatment through an improved pH swing method. The salient feature of this improved method is that ethanol is added into the waste solution to not only prohibit the phase transformation of vaterite, but also to suppress the ionization of the regenerated acetic acid. This method allows not only more vaterite to be produced, but also more acetic acid to be regenerated from the waste solution through a CO 2 bubbling method. Meanwhile, CO 2 can be permanently stored in the produced vaterite to achieve sustainable CO 2 sequestration. Experimental results confirm that near-pure vaterite can be produced from the waste solution by adding 20% ethanol into the waste solution. 1 kg RCAs can be used to produce about 76.6g vaterite and permanently store 33.7g CO 2 by using this new method. The potential application of the produced vaterite as an internal curing agent for high performance concrete has also been demonstrated.