Copper slag from different dumps in the Atacama Region used in mortars as partial replacement of cement

Abstract

The use of copper slag as a partial substitute for cement in mortar preparation was studied. Copper slag samples were collected from three dumps in the Atacama Region (Northern Chile). Mortars of 40x40x160 mm (width, height, length) and curing times of 7, 28 and 90 days were used in mechanical testing. Tests were performed with 0% (control mortar), 5, 10, 15 and 20% copper slag as partial replacement of cement. The results of mechanical tests showed a gradual increase in compressive and flexural strength at 7, 28 and 90 days in mortars containing copper slag when compared with the control mortar. The major differences between the control and copper slag mortars are evident after 7 days, which indicates that the presence of slag in the blends has a retardant effect on the hardening process. On the other hand, at 90 days, compressive and flexural strength was very similar for both control mortar and mortars containing copper slag. Optimal compressive and flexural strength values are achieved with 5% of cement substitution by copper slag. The study concludes that the use of copper slag in mortars presents a viable alternative for partial cement replacement, and also contributes to mitigate adverse environmental effects of copper mining.

Copper Recovery Through Smelter Slag Flotation in Atacama, Chile: An Industrial Case Study

“…Chemical and mineralogical analyses indicated 0,58% copper and 0,55% sulfur; high amounts of iron (33,3%) and silica (17,7%); substantial amounts of calcium oxide (5,50%) and alumina (3,95%); and minor amounts of sodium, potassium, and magnesium oxides. These values are consistent with the chemical composition of ancient and recent CS from Atacama (Cardona, Coursol, Vargas, and Parra, 2011;Nazer et al, 2010;Pavez, Nazer, Rivera, Salinas, and Araya, 2019).…”

Evaluation of coppe slag as aggregate addition on properties of cementitious matrix

“…This is interesting mainly due the competitive compressive achieved comparable to reference sample with a waste based material. These results found here is in line with presented in [1,23,21,25,20], however this results are different than found by AL-JABRI et al [32], that verified a slight improvement in the mechanical strength of the concretes with CS addition until 40% of addition. This difference may be due the CS characteristics used in this research, that is coarser than used in AL-JABRI et al [32] research.…”

“…PAVEZ et al [20] partially replaced the cement in three types of mortar with copper slag and found that in general, up to 10% of substitution there was no significant loss of mechanical properties.…”

Avaliação de resíduos de mineração de rochas cristalinas para uso como agregado em concreto segundo sua petrografia, índices físicos e resistência mecânica

“…BARBOSA et al [3] utilizaram resíduo de granito a fim de empregar como material cimentício, obtendo bons resultados segundo à resistência à compressão com o aumento do tempo de moagem desses resíduos. Já PAVEZ et al [4] utilizou escória de cobre em argamassa como substituto parcial de cimento.…”