Tenth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Civil construction industry grows constantly everyday - cement is currently the second most used raw material, preceded only by water. Studies show that for each ton of cement used, 0,8 tons of CO2 are thrown to the atmosphere, making the cement industry responsible for 5-8% of all CO2 emission around the world. More so, search for efficiency is also incessant: researches are born everyday in order to look for new ways to make buildings safe, durable, cheap and environmentally-friendly. With that in mind, waste products from many industries are being studied for their potential use in civil construction: residues like red mud, a bauxite waste, and kaolin sludge, from the kaolin improvement process, are being analysed due to their relevant properties such as the presence of aluminosilicates. Uniting the search for efficiency and sustainability, the goal of this research is to study the potential use for the Caulim Sludge, a waste product from industries in the amazon, as a partial substitute for the Portland Cement in the fabrication of concrete, aiming to, in a long-term, reduce wastes, costs, and CO2 emissions by reducing cement consume, as well as improving the efficiency of new buildings to come. The kaolin sludge is heat-treated for dehydroxylation and formation of metakaolin - then, it is used as a supplementary material for Portland Cement that is substituted with contents of 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%. Finally, the concrete test bodies are tested and analysed for their properties.