Strength performance of concrete with gold mine tailings-based geopolymer binder

• Main Authors: Beltran, Hannah Eunice V., Calicdan, Camille Allyssa L., Duran, Tony Rose E., Ramos, Caryl David G.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2018
• Subjects: Structural engineering; Concrete; Cement; Civil Engineering
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/9083
• Institution: De La Salle University

Mine tailings are waste materials composed of very fine particles produced through the extraction of minerals from ores. They usually end up in large piles that are detrimental to the health and life of the neighboring communities. Also, the amount of carbon dioxide emissions of cement production poses a great threat to the environment. With that, the use of a geopolymer binder primarily made from mine tailings, as a substitute for cement paste in the production of concrete will be beneficial to the environment and the people. This environment-friendly type of concrete is produced through the geopolymerization process activated through the combination of an aluminosilicate material and an alkaline solution. In this study, the gold mine tailings sample obtained from Benguet was mixed with the alkaline solution, or the combination of the 10-molar sodium hydroxide solution (10M NaOH) and the water glass solution (WGS), to produce the binder. The gold mine tailings-based geopolymer concrete (MTGC) was produced using a combination of WGS-to-10M NaOH ratio and alkaline solution-to-mine tailings (AS-to-MT) ratio obtained through experimental elimination. The elimination process was done by testing several combinations of these ratios in producing geopolymer binder specimens. The combination that produced the geopolymer binder cubes with the highest compressive strength were the AS-to-MT ratio of 0.35 and the WGS-to-10M NaOH solution ratio of 2.5. However, strength test results on the MTGC specimens produced using the said ratios showed lower values of strength compared to that of the conventional concrete. Despite this, however, other applications of the MTGC may still be explored. In addtion, Atterberg limits and grain size distribution experiments, scanning electron microscope (SEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD), and energy dispersive x-ray flourescence (EDXRF) analyses were also accomplished to obtain more information on the properties and characteristics of the gold mine talings sample, even on a microspcopic level.