Backfilling disposal based on cement solidification is one of the ways to solve the environmental and safe problems of uranium tailing surface stacking. Alkali-activated slag, especially sodium silicate activated geopolymer, has become the preferred cementing material for the uranium tailing backfilling system because of its advantages of corrosion resistance and high strength. In this paper, uranium tailings and slag are taken as research objects, and the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) is taken as the main quality index. The preparation method of the cemented uranium tailing backfill based on alkali-activated slag was studied, hereinafter referred to as CUTB. The effects of additive amount, activator amount and activator modulus on the strength of CUTB were investigated. The results show that alkali-activated slag is an effective cementing material for the backfilling system of uranium tailing aggregate. The maximum UCS of 28 d age in the test groups is 16.45 MPa. Quicklime is an important additive for preparing CUTB. When the amount of quicklime is 0%, the early and late strengths of the filling body cannot be measured or at a very low level. At the age of 7 d, the order of each factor is additive amount > activator modulus > activator amount, but at the age of 28 d, the order of each factor is additive amount > activator amount > activator modulus. The test results can provide a basis for choosing cementitious materials for backfilling disposal of uranium tailings.
Good fluidity is the precondition to ensure the pipeline transportation of the filling slurry. The admixture in the filling slurry will affect the rheological properties of the slurry. In this paper, yield stress (YS), viscosity coefficient (VC), and expansion (ED) of the filling slurry were measured by the MCR52 rheometer and expansion tester, respectively, and the influence regularities of the three kinds of admixtures including fly ash (FA), polycarboxylate superplasticizer (PS), and polyethylene oxide (PEO) on the rheological properties of the filling slurry were obtained. The results show that when other conditions are fixed, the fluidity of the slurry becomes worse with the increase of the amount of fly ash but improves with the increase of the amount of the polycarboxylate superplasticizer; polyethylene oxide is not suitable for the improvement of the fluidity of the high-concentration full-tailing filling slurry, and the fluidity of the slurry becomes worse rapidly with the increase of the amount of polyethylene oxide.
The use of some environmental functional minerals as backfill-modified materials may improve the leaching resistance of cemented uranium tailings backfill created from alkali-activated slag (CUTB), but these materials may participate in the hydration reaction of the cementitious materials, which could have a certain impact on the pore structure of the CUTB, thus affecting its mechanical properties and leaching resistance. In this paper, natural zeolite is selected as the backfill-modified material, and it is added to alkali-activated slag paste (AASP) and CUTB in cementitious material proportions of 4%, 8%, 12%, and 16% to prepare AASP mixtures and CUTB mixtures containing environmental functional minerals. After the addition of natural zeolite, the porosity of the CUTB generally increases, but when the content is 4%, the porosity decreases to 22.30%. The uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of the CUTB generally decreases, but the decrease is the smallest when the content is 4%, and the UCS is 12.37 MPa. The addition of natural zeolite mainly reduces the number of fine pores in the CUTB, but the pores with relaxation times T 2 of greater than 10 ms account for about 10% of the total pores, and there are a certain number of large pores in the CUTB. The main product of alkali-activated slag is calcium (alumino)silicate hydrate (C-(A)-S-H gel). When natural zeolite is added, the hydration products develop towards denser products with a high degree of polymerization and the formation of low polymerization products is reduced. This affects the internal fracture pores of the hydration products and the interface pores of the CUTB, has an irregular effect on the pore characteristics of the CUTB, and influences the UCS.
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