The Feasibility of Using Marble Cutting Waste in a Sustainable Building Clay Industry

Abstract

This study evaluates the feasibility of stabilizing clay bricks with marble cutting waste (MCW). This waste currently discarded in huge quantities as a sludge resulted from sawing the marble blocks to slabs, grinding and polishing of marble processes to the landfills located around the marble processing factories located in the Shaq El-Thoban industrial zone, Cairo governorate, Egypt causing negative impacts on the environment, health and sustainable development. Experimental investigations were carried out to explore the effect of addition of the MCW in different clay-base mixes at different percentages up to 25% at the expense of the hydrated lime. Cement, hydrated lime and MCW are the three types of solidification agents used, clay and sand were also added in the formulations of the unfired clay brick specimens. Laboratory cylindrical stabilized and compressed specimens were made, and then they were cured in a humidity chamber for 2 and 4 weeks, then after were air dried, tested and evaluated according to the Egyptian code for the building by the stabilized and compressed earth soil (ECBS, 2016). To enhance the durability of the cured specimens, transparent silicon – based paint was used for this purpose. The laboratory results demonstrate high potential usage of MCW based additives up to 15% incorporating HL. In addition, the used paint could be an effective treatment way for the use of stabilized bricks in a wet environment. The use of eco-friendly building materials will be a great contribution for the environmental advantages and suggest a remarkable economical alternative to the fired building units.

Evaluation of the Improvement Effect of Limestone Powder Waste in the Stabilization of Swelling Clayey Soil

“…These reactions can bring the formation of cementitious products, such as calcium-silicate-hydrates (C-S-H), calcium-aluminate-hydrates (C-A-H), and calcium-aluminium-silicate-hydrates (C-A-S-H) [24]. Previous works reported the formation of cementing and poorly crystalline gels when calcium carbonate with lime was added to clays [36].…”

Future of clay-based construction materials – A review

“…The development of unfired claybased construction products with comparable or better performance than fired products significantly reduces CO2 emissions, reduces consumption of energy that in turn leads to cheaper products with reduced environmental impact. A brief summary of key experimental research work on this clay processing technique can be found in Table 1. El-Mahllawy et al [36] investigated the effectiveness of combining Kafr Homied clay (KHC), Marble Cutting Waste (MCW), hydrated lime (HL) and Portland cement (PC) in the production of sustainable unfired clay brick. The results indicated that the water absorption decreased while the bulk density and compressive strength increased with extended curing time and increase of the MCW content in the presence of HL.…”

“…According to the reviewed studies and amongst the variety of stabilizers utilised, cement and lime have been the most popular stabilizers in the production of stabilised clay-based construction materials. Cement and/or lime were used either alone [37][38][39][42][43][44], in combination with each other [35,36] or in combination with other stabilisers such as GGBS or PFA [45][46][47]. However, two of the reviewed studies were used different stabilisers such as calcium carbide residue with rice husk ash [40] and magnesium oxide rich kiln dust [41].…”

“…Additionally, the lime and cement were blended with GGBS or PFA to boost the hydration process of these materials by the highly alkaline environment (pH > 12) and accelerate the production of cementitious compound that binds the soil together [45,46]. In some cases, the stabiliser dosage were relatively high with 22% for [46] and 25% for [36]. Regarding the dosage of stabiliser for the paper with calcium carbide residue and rice husk ash [40] were in the range of 5-12% while the magnesium oxide rich kiln dust [41] was in the range of 3-18%.…”

“…The reviewed studies indicated that the production of C-S-H and C-A-S-H gel phases increased with increasing the amounts of stabiliser in the mixture [36,37,39,40,45]. This was due to the chemical reaction occurring between the CaO from the cement, lime and other stabilisers and amorphous silica provided by clay together with the high alkalinity environment of cement or lime [37,39,45,46].…”