Mining & Mineral Wastes for the Development of Building Materials

Dr. Mohan Rai

Farmer Head (Building Materials) CBRI
Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee (India)

ABSTRACT

Cost reduction in building is the primary objective in almost all the developing countries.
To achieve this objective, there are intensive efforts being made in the effective
utilization of wastes and byproducts, particularly from mining and mineral industries,
with a view to conservation of primary raw materials, viz, clay, limestone, energy (coal,
oil) and water, in almost all building materials industries. This paper presents a brief
account of the Indian experience in the utilization of fly ash, blast furnace slag, and
byproduct gypsum, red mud and mine tailings of iron, zinc, copper and gold ores
beneficiation in the development of cements, concrete products, calcium silicate bricks
and cellular concrete.

1.0 Introduction :
Until about middle of the nineteenth century, apart from stone and mud, burnt-clay
bricks, tiles natural pozzolana, gypsum and lime were the chief building materials all
over the world. The real breakthrough came in the invention of portland and cement, in
1824 A.D., by Vanderburg in Germany and cellular concrete in 1925, by Axel Erikson, in
Sweden. Since then the face of building materials has undergone a remarkable change.
The technological developments, plant and machinery, automation, requirements of
energy and trained manpower, have all run a parallel race.
Incidentally, it is only in the context of the most versatile applications of cement
and concrete that there are innovations, through extensive R&D and industrial processes,
related to the utilization of slag, pulverised fuel ashes, mine tailings and many other
wastes and byproducts. But the history of all these developments in hardly 150 years old.
India established its first cement plant in 1904 in Porebander (Gujarat) the cellular
concrete plant, in 1948, in New Delhi, thus not far behind the first plants in the U.K.,
Germany and Sweden. Even the first steel plant in India was established, in 1870, by
Bengal Iron Works Co. Kulti (West Bengal) and a complete integrated steel plant, in
1907 by Tata Irom and Steel Works at Jamshedpur (Jharkhand) (The U.S.A. established
the first steel plant in 1860, at Sanjus, Mass). The U.S.A., started using fly ash in cement
around 1938, in India, in 1950, in mass concrete by Rihand dam and Bokaro (Jharkhand)
was completed. It was in early fifties that the Central Building Research Institute,
Roorkee (Uttaranchal) India, began studies on the characteristics of black and red clays
and variability of fly ashes. The CBRI also established the suitability of granulated blast
furnace slag, from TISCO, for slag cement. Later, in 1964, the CBRI, with the financial
assistance from HUDCO, established four demonstration plants for the manufacture of
clay fly ash burnt bricks. Side. The Central Fuel Research Institute, Dhanbad (Jharkhand)
and the CBRI took two patents in 1972, on the manufacturing technologies, for the
production of fly ash sand lime bricks, by both normal pressure steam and high pressure
(autoclaved) curing pressures. Thus, in spite of not lacking in R & D and initiatives, the
situations about the initialization of fly ash and other byproducts are far from anything
but satisfactory though notwithstanding the country taking pride in surplus production in
bricks, cement and steel.

2.0 Industrial and mining wastes in India:

A classification of the wastes and by products available in India is given in table 1
in three groups.
Table 1 classification of wastes and by products, in India.

Group I Group II Group II

Blast furnace slag steal slag

Bottom ash Bituminous coal waste sugar lime sludge

Fly ash Phosphate slag Paper lime sludge

Boiler slag slate mining waste Tannery lime sludge

Anthracite coal reside Laterite waste Gold ore tailing

Scrap iron Foundry waste sand copper ore tailing

Scrap Aluminium Incinerator residne Zinc ore tailing

Stone waste waste glass Iron ore tailing

Felspar waste Zinc smelter slag Fluorspar tailing

China clay waste Building rubble Marble dressing waste

Burnt tile waste Alumina red mud

Phospho gypsum Acetyline lime sludge

Fluorogypsum Lime sludge from fertilizer

Borogypsum

Group I materials have been characterized by properties like soundness, strength, shape,
abrasion resistance and gradation and they all find one or the other uses in building
materials. Group II materials are used to a limited scale because they require some
processing. Some of them did not quite satisfy the unhindered utilization or confirm to
the Indian standard specifications. Group III materials have been investigated quite
thoroughly but there are no standard specifications yet for their proposed uses.
Additionally, some of group III materials need further beneficiation to get them free from
either toxic or undesrable constitutents like P2O5, SO3, and alkalies.

Table-2 : presents a list of the mineral and mining wastes, in 5 groups, which are now
being extensively utilized as principal or secondary raw materials as substituted or
supplement with resultant savings in clays, limestone, coal and water.

Table 2: Major wastes production in India and their uses

Wastes & by products Annual Uses Materials saved
production
(Mt)
Metal scraps 25 In metal products Metallic ores, coal

Blast furnace slag 12 PSC, SSC, oil well Limestone,

cement, masonry clay shale
cement, aggregate, stone aggregate
concrete blocks & coal

Fly ash, PFA 95 PPC, concrete, Limestone, clay

masonry block, stone aggregate,
calcium silicate sand, coal & water
brick & cellular concrete

Mine tailings 6.5 fire aggregate, concrete sand, clay

Additive, in calcium
silicate brick

By product gypsum 5.0 Cement, plaster boards Natural gypsum

3.0 Hazardous wastes :
Wastes and byproducts are, many a time, categorized hazardous and consequently
need very careful handling, and upgradation and detoxification. The industrial
byproducts mine and mineral wastes, considered hazardous, are fly ash, tailings from
gold, copper, zinc ores, fluorspar waste, roasted pyrites and asbestos factory waste.
Fly ashes countaims Cd, Cr, Ni, Fe, Zn, Cu, Pb and also traces of As, Hg, Sr, Th,
U, V, and Mo with increasing concentration in water from fly ash ponds, Mine tailing
contain prine oil, toxic minieral wastes, Pb, Zn, HCN etc. and the contaminated water
flowing down pollute the soil and surface water. Alumina red mud is highly toxic with
NaOH and traces of spent lining materials containing sodium cyanide and fluoride, get
mixed on disposal. Indian red mud of high TiO2 and Fe2O3 contents is a very difficult
material to handle. Likewise are the silica fumes & metallurgical slag. Asbestos factory
wastes and broken a.c. sheets and pipes are well known hazardous materials to handle
and preferably must be calcined to convert to magnesium silicates (MgO.2SiO2) forsterite
before they could be used as a concrete additive.
Thus an industrial or mining mineral waste only in perfectly upgraded form
become a low cost but high value material.

3.1 Occupational hazards in handling wastes :

Mining, pottery, glass, asbestos industries, coal mining and classification waste,
coal washery rejects all produce enormous quantities of dust, heat and noise, and extreme
occupational hazards. They cause silicosis, asbestosis and prenumoconis related diseases
among the workers and the residents around the industrial units. To give an instance a
survey conducted in and around Korba (Chattisgarh) which has huge thermal power
stations and Bharat Aluminaum Co, showed high incidence of diseases like bronchitis,
asthama, gastric alignments among the people, and which have increased several times
during the last 30 years. The chief reasons found out are exposure to coal dust, silica and
red mud powder. The damage and other notable degradations observed were on
topography, loss of forest cover, depletion of green belt and cultivable land. Such
hazardous environments, therefore, must be taken care of before a waste material is lifted
and transported to a cement brick or concrete producing plant.

4.0 Characterization based selective utilization of the wastes

Mining and mineral wastes must be fully characterized for a potential application
as building material constituent. For example, fly ashes with high glassy phases, high
SiO2 and residual carbon <3% and CaO <5% are preferred for blended cement (PPC) and
calcium silicate bricks and concrete, and those with the crystalline calcium silicate
content, ie high CaO (>10%) in lignite burnt ashes are preferred for making bricks and
blocks, mortar and plaster and non-autoclaved cellular concrete.
Granulated blast furnace slag must be free from MnO2 like oxides. The slags from
the silico-managanese alloy steel plants should be carefully assessed for their
crystallinaity, deleterious matter for use as concrete aggregate. Likewise roasted pyrites
and fluorspar waste should be estimated for SO3. Content Table 3 gives trends in variety-
wise cement productivity in India from 1947 to 2003, and how there has been gradual
increase in the production of blended cements using fly ash and granulated blast furnace
slag.
These figures show that in 2003 , there is 44.36% production of PPC, 9.58% of
PBSC and 45.54% of OPC. Thus, it is clear that decrease in OPC, would reduce
correspondingly the consumption of limestone, water, coal and also lower the emission of
CO2, contributing to the reduction in global warming. The cement industry in India is
utilizing secondary grade CaCO3 materials like chalk, marl, sea shell, waste limestone etc
Availability of more and more cement has provided encouragement for the production
and use of concrete blocks in thousands of large and small units, replacing burnt-clay
bricks, cutting down a bigger source of atmospheric pollution.

4.1 Concrete block masonry units and saving of limestone & energy :
Table-4 gives a simple calculation about the effective use of limestone in various
walling units of equivalent strength It shows that not only clays are saved, but there is
lesser limestone consumption as compared to the old fashioned lime-based block. Cement
based (with fly ash) calcium silicate bricks or pre-cast concrete should be preferred. This
is the main reason that the concrete block/brick, slag fly ash lime-gypsum bricks
industries have multiplied and led to introduction of various government directives to use
fly ash in all kinds of bricks blocks and ready-mix concrete and obtain tax concessions if
a minimum 25% fly ash in used in a product.
Table-4 gives two typical mix proportion of concretes, using high fly ash and/or
ground granulated blast furnace slag with effective saving of cement (limestone), water,
and energy.

5.0 Utilization of wastes and energy conservation

The present production of burnt clay bricks, the most commonly used walling
material in India is about 85,000 million numbers, for which consumption of coal is about
18 MT (4.5%). If this coal consumption has to be reduced, about 10 to 30% fly ash
should be blended depending upon the clay characteristics. Apart from coal, if is the
precious clay (land/which can be saved . In India, in 127 large and 300 small plants the
total cement production, in 2004 was 123.5 million tonnes ( India being the second
largest producer in the world) yet it is just 6% of the world production. The coal
consumption for cement is 20 MT (5.5%)
These most important building materials could reduce energy consumption only
marginally. Of the total consumption of coal, 18% account for steel and coke, 45% for
the thermal power stations and 22.5% for miscellaneous industries. The consumption in
thermal power plants is expected only to increase, in face of huge requirement of electric
power in the country.
It is, therefore, very clear that the loud noise for reduction of limestone
consumption in cements by, producing higher quantities of blended cements, would not
result in total CO2 reduction which is at present just 22% by all industries, including
cement. A major contributory factor in CO2 emission is by domestic fuel consumption
and any reduction in that is a big question mark.
 Taking into account all the factors, it is more than the energy conservation, the
most gigantic problem is how to tackle requirements of 70,000 hectare of land for
disposal of fly ash and about 350000 hectare of land for production of burnt clay bricks.

6.0 Concluding remarks

The development of building materials in India and in other countries in similar
situation, is how important it is to utilize, as much as possible, the mining and mineral
wastes in the production of bricks, cements, concretes block, pre-cast concrete, roofing,
ready mix concrete, mass concrete, calcium silicate bricks and cellular concrete.