Technological Trends in the Use of Natural Marble Residue in the Cement Portland Production from Prospecting in Patent Documents

Abstract

The civil construction industry affects the environment mainly due to the high generation of waste and extraction of natural raw materials. However, this industry is also responsible for absorbing a large part of the waste, not only generated by itself, but also those generated in other production cycles. These residues are often reused as an alternative raw material, after some treatment. The use of ornamental stone cutting waste has already been studied by many authors, and it is a technically viable alternative in cement matrix products for civil construction. Thus, this technological prospection work analyzed the technological trends regarding the use of marble waste in cement production, based on the registration of patents in recent years. For this, a search was carried out in the Brazilian Nacional Institute of Intellectual Property (INPI) and Dewert Innovation Index (DII) databases, in April 2021, with no period limitation. The main documents were found in the DII database, and the results showed that among the countries that filed a patent on this subject, China is the country with the highest number of filings, with the majority of these filings occurring between 2014 and 2020, suggesting a reflection of the current interest in ways to give an adequate destination to ornamental stone waste.

Valorization of Marble Waste Powder as a Replacement for Limestone in Clinker Production: Technical, Environmental and Economic Evaluation

“…Research on the production of ceramic brick [2][3][4][5], cement [6][7][8][9], mortar [10][11][12][13], and concrete [14][15][16][17][18] has been conducted in the past few years. Among these wastes, marble residue is of great interest because of the amount generated during marble exploration [19].…”

“…This sludge causes economic losses since a large part of this material is deposited on land without any type of later use [22]. Studies have been conducted in search of a proper destination for the residue because mining and cutting processes can result in a loss of up to 83% of raw material [19,23].…”

“…Nevertheless, despite the increased number of studies and patent registrations regarding the use of marble powder in clinker production since 2014, there are only 18 patent documents about this topic [19]. Most studies have focused on using marble waste to produce clinker or filler.…”