3D PRINTABLE BUILDING MATERIAL

COMPOSED OF COPPER TAILINGS AND IRON

TAILINGS

Guided by Presented By
Dr. Manu S Nadesan Alan Shaju
Associate Professor ASI17CE002
CE Dept. ASIET 2017-2021
Department of Civil Engineering ASIET
 CONTENT
• INTRODUCTION
• OBJECTIVE
• METHODOLOGY
 Experimental methodology
 Results
• CONCLUSION
• REFERENCE

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 1
tailings
 INTRODUCTION
 Nowadays, the increase in mineral resources leads to serious environmental
problems in mines.
 The total quantity of mine tailings is about 45 billion tons, accounting for more
than 80% of the total amount of industrial solid wastes .
 Copper tailings are fine sand grains left after crushing and mineral processing
of copper ores.
 Smelting of copper tailings is not ideal for the time being and the utilization
rate of copper tailings is extremely low.
 The copper tailings contain a variety of alumino-silicate minerals with
appropriate content, they are more suitable for industrial reuse to prepare
construction and building materials.

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 2
tailings
 Iron tailing is a kind of industrial solid waste generated from mineral
processing of iron ores, which is a major component of industrial solid wastes.

 The development and utilization of iron tailings resources mainly have three
directions, one is to recover valuable components, and the others are to make
building materials and land reclamation.

 Copper tailings and iron tailings are usually viewed as solid wastes to drain
into the tailings of dykes and dams near the mines.

 The storage of tailings requires a large amount of lands and also causes water
pollution and air pollution.

 Leads to chemical pollution of surface water and underground water caused by

toxic mineral components.
3D Printable building material
composed of copper tailings and iron 3
tailings
 3D printing method which has been successfully applied in construction field
in recent years.

 3D printing includes the model-based three-dimensional data, extruding

materials by a printer nozzle and printing additional materials to generate 3D
entities in a layer by layer manner .

 Copper tailings and iron tailings are rich in silicon oxide and uniform particles
with low cost, they are ideal raw materials for the preparation of 3D printing
materials in building and construction.

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 4
tailings
 OBJECTIVES

• To propose an environmentally friendly 3D printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron tailings that matches well with an
extrusion-based printing process.
• To check whether the physical properties are appropriate for the
operability of 3D printing for building materials.
• To minimize carbon dioxide emission associated with the production of
cement.

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 5
tailings
 PROPOSED METHODOLOGY

Experimental Methodology

• Raw materials
 Main raw materials employed in the experiment are iron tailings and
copper tailings.
 Besides, fly ash and belite cement were also added.
• Experimental methods
 Copper tailings and iron tailings were blended with fly ash and belite
cement in appropriate proportions as shown in Table 1.1

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 6
tailings
Water to solid ratio : 0.20.
Fly ash : 19%
Belite cement : 30%
FDN water reducer : 1%
FDN -high-efficiency water reducing agent, a brown powder with main component
of naphthalene sulfonated formaldehyde condensates.
3D Printable building material
composed of copper tailings and iron 7
tailings
Raw materials of 3D printable building materials:
a) iron tailings
b) copper tailings

• Eleven batches of mortars as listed in were prepared and tested for the
mechanical properties .
• Mortar samples were prepared in dimensions of 40 mmx40 mm x160
mm
3D Printable building material
composed of copper tailings and iron 8
tailings
• Four specimens were prepared and tested at each mixing condition to
obtain representative results for the physical and mechanical
properties.
• To investigate the long-term stable hydration products of 3D printable
building material composed of copper tailings and iron tailings,
microstructural characterization was performed on 90-day specimens.
• The specimens hydrated for 90 days were soaked in alcohol for 72 h to
stop the hydration, and then the specimens taken out of the alcohol
were wiped and dried in a vacuum oven at 60 ˚C for 24 h.

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 9
tailings
• The core part of the specimens was selected for subsequent
characterization of XRD, FTIR and SEM. On one hand, powder samples
for XRD and FTIR analysis were prepared by grinding the core part of
the specimens.
• Then small block samples of 8mm×8mm×2 mm for SEM analysis were
prepared by cutting the core part of the specimens, and then dried in
the vacuum oven at 60 ˚C for 12 h.
• The small block samples were treated with gold sputtering before SEM
observation
• Particle size distribution of iron tailings and copper tailings was tested
by using a laser particle size analyzer (Mastersizer 2000).

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 10
tailings
• FTIR analysis was performed using Nicolet Nexus Type 410 Fourier
transform infrared spectrometer.
• The leaching toxicity experiment of the 3D printable building material
composed of copper tailings and iron tailings was performed in terms
of acetic acid buffer solution method.
• The mortar sample was first crushed to make the particle size smaller
than 9.5 mm, and 100 g (dry weight) of the crushed sample was
leached with an acetic acid solution (pH = 2.69) at a 20:1 mix of solvent
to sample.

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 11
tailings
• The leachate mixture was sealed in an extraction vessel
and then tumbled for 18 h at 30 rpm.
• Then the leachate was filtered through a 0.45 µm
membrane filter.
• ICP analysis was conducted on an OPTIMA 7000DV
inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer
to test the leaching concentrations of heavy metals.

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 12
tailings
Results
Physical and mechanical properties

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 13
tailings
 3D Printable building material
composed of copper tailings and iron 14
tailings
• Compared with the samples of FC0 and FC10, the other
nine samples (FC1–FC9) containing both of copper tailings
and iron tailings exhibit higher compressive strength.
• Same trend on the 28-day flexural strength
• experimental results indicate that the copper tailings and
iron tailings have satisfactory compounding effect on the
mechanical properties.

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 15
tailings
• with the increasing content of copper tailings, the initial setting time and final
setting time have a tendency to decrease.
• fluidity is also declined with the increasing content of copper tailings.

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 16
tailings
• results demonstrate that replacing iron tailings with copper tailings for
preparation of the building materials will decline the fluidity and
setting time of materials due to smaller particles of copper tailings
compared to the iron tailings.
• Taken together, it can be seen that FC7 sample composed of 40% iron
tailings and 10% copper tailings has excellent physical and mechanical
properties.
• Taking into consideration of the good properties and compounding
effect of copper tailings and iron tailings, FC7 sample is the optimal
design for the 3D printable building materials.

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 17
tailings
Physical properties appropriate for the
operability of 3D printing
 40% iron tailings
10% copper tailings
19% fly ash
30% belite cement
1% FDN water reducing agent
 Fluidity =197.5 mm
 Initial setting time : 50 min
Final setting time :82 min

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 18
tailings
Environmentally friendly performance of the 3D
printable building material

• As the developed 3D printable building material is composed of copper

tailings and iron tailings with 50% content, it is indispensable to assess
the environmental impact of this material.
• the radioactivity and leaching toxicity of FC7 sample were evaluated to
analyze the related environmental performance of 3D printable
building material.

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 19
tailings
3D printing work

• FC7 sample has excellent physical and mechanical properties as well as

environmentally friendly performance, it has been applied practically
in 3D printing works.
• 3D printing nozzle is an extrusion print head device for the printed
building work.

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 20
tailings
• Building printer is mainly composed of four
parts:
1) A 3D printing frame body
2) A feeding system
3) An extrusion printing head device
4) A conrol system.

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 21
tailings
3D printing nozzle and schematic diagram

3D printing process and printed framework

3D Printable building material
composed of copper tailings and iron 22
tailings
3D printed house (a, b), rockery (c), and background wall (d)
3D Printable building material
composed of copper tailings and iron 23
tailings
 CONCLUSION
• An optimal design for the 3D printable building materials composed of
copper tailings and iron tailings was determined by the FC7 sample
that contains 40% iron tailings, 10% copper tailings, 19% fly ash, 30%
belite cement, and 1% FDN water reducing agent.
• With fluidity of 197.5mm,initial setting time and final setting time of 50
min and 82 min, respectively, its physical properties are appropriate
for the operability of 3D printing for building materials.
• It is found that the copper tailings and iron tailings have the best
compounding effect when the mass ratio of iron tailings to copper
tailings is 4:1, and the 3D printable building material has the highest
28-day flexural and compressive strength of 8.2 MPa and 45.2 Mpa
under laboratory conditions, respectively

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 24
tailings
• By testing the radioactivity and leaching toxicity of FC7 sample, it can
be known that the 3D printable building material composed of copper
tailings and iron tailings is environmentally friendly.
• The3D printable building material developed in this work has excellent
workability such as good fluidity and controllable setting time.
• It has been applied practically in 3D printing works to build chair,
house, rockery and background wall.
• This study proposes a solution for the effective use of copper tailings
and iron tailings in 3D printable building materials, which can reduce
environmental pollution.
• It also enhances the building function and augment the important
social benefits.

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 25
tailings
 REFERENCES
[1] Xinjian Li, Na Zhang, Jianbo Yuan, Xinke Wang, Yonghong Zhang, Feixu Chen , “Preparation and
microstructural characterization of a novel 3D printable building material composed of copper tailings
and iron tailings ,” Construction and Building Materials, 249 , 118779, March 2020.
[2] G. Ma, Z. Li, L. Wang, “Printable properties of cementitious material containing copper tailings
for extrusion based 3D printing,” Construction and Building Materials, 162 , 613–627, 2018.
[3] F. Han, L. Li, S. Song, J. Liu, “3) Early-age hydration characteristics of composite
binder containing iron tailing powder,” Powder Technology , 315 , 322–331, April 2017.
[4] B. Han, B. Altansukh, K. Haga, Z. Stevanovic, R. Jonovic, L. Avramovic ,”Development of copper
recovery process from flotation tailings by a combined method of high-pressure leaching-solvent
extraction,” Journal of Hazardous Materials 352 ,192–203,2018.
[5] B. Zareiyan, B. Khoshnevis, “Interlayer adhesion and strength of structures in contour crafting -
effects of aggregate size, extrusion rate, and layer thickness,” Automation in Construction ,81 ,112–
121,June 2017.

3D Printable building material

composed of copper tailings and iron 26
tailings
 3D Printable building material
composed of copper tailings and iron 27
tailings