Original citation: Poon, C.-S., Ling, T.-C. (2010) Use of recycled glass in architectural mortar.

Wuhan Ligong Daxue Xuebao/Journal of Wuhan University of Technology; 32 (17): 231-235. http://en.cnki.com.cn/Article_en/CJFDTOTAL-WHGY201017046.htm

USE OF RECYCLED GLASS IN ARCHITECTURAL MORTAR

Ling T.C. (1) and Poon C.S. (1) (1) Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, Faculty of Construction and Land Use, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, China

Abstract: In recent years, recycled glass has been used widely as aggregate replacements in concrete. Owing the aesthetic potential of the coloured recycled glass, this research aims to fully utilize this advantage for their higher end uses, such as architectural mortar. In this study, architectural white cement mortar was produced with a self consolidating method using recycled glass as the aggregate. An adequate amount of Metakaolin was incorporated into mortar to mitigate the adverse effect of alkali-silica reaction. The results show that the selfcompacting method is suitable to produce architectural mortar containing up to 100% recycled glass. Overall, the performance of all the architectural mortar mixtures on both fresh and hardened properties was good.

1.

INTRODUCTION

Waste glass represents one of the major components of the solid waste stream [1]. As a result, waste glass has been heavily targeted for recycling efforts by various municipalities. It is well known that not all waste glass can be easily reused and recycled into new glass. Therefore alternative methods are needed for utilization of the waste glass. Previous studies have demonstrated that one possible use for the crushed waste glass is recycling it as aggregate in Portland cement concrete [2-4]. It was observed that as the recycled glass (RG) content increased in the mortar or concrete, there was a reduction in strength due to the weak bonding between the cement paste and the glass aggregate. Apart from strength, the use of RG in concrete also would negatively induce the alkali-silica reaction (ASR) resulting in expansion and cracking of the concrete [5]. However, the ASR expansion of concrete could be significantly reduced by the use of fly ash and metakaolin in the concrete mixes [6]. The primary objective in this study is to investigate the feasibility of using as much recycled glass in mortar as possible. For architectural mortar, the aesthetic performance is an important issue. Therefore, the second objective is fully utilizing the aesthetic potential of the recycled glass into the mortar. The fresh properties and hardened properties such as flexural strength, drying shrinkage and ASR expansion were determined. The details of the experimental work, results and discussion as well as conclusions are given in the following sections.

*Second Author: t.ling.1@bham.ac.uk; tcling611@yahoo.com

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2.

EXPERIMENATAL DETAILS

2.1 Materials White cement (WC), metakaolin (MK), natural sand, recycled glass and water were used to prepare the architectural mortar mixtures. The chemical composition of the binder materials are given in Table 1. Both crushed recycled glass (RG) with a fineness modulus of 4.19, sourced from a local recycling plant and natural river sand with most of the particles passing through the 2.36 mm sieve were used as aggregates. The particle size distributions of RG and natural sand are shown in Table 2. A superplasticizer ADVA-109 contained no added chloride and weights approximately 1.0450.02 kg/l was used as a high range water reducer. Table 1: Example of construction of a table Chemical composition (%) Silicon dioxide (SiO2) Aluminum oxide (Al2O3) Ferric oxide (Fe2O3) Calcium oxide (CaO) Magnesium oxide (MgO) Sodium oxide (Na2O) Potassium oxide (K2O) Sulfur trioxide (SO3) Loss on ignition White cement 21.36 5.27 0.2 67.49 1.14 0.048 0.077 2.6 1.58 Metakaolin 51.39 32.91 0.58 0.01 0.01 0.39 0.98 13.57

Table 2: Particle size distributions and physical properties of fine aggregate Sieve size (mm) 5.0 2.36 1.18 0.6 0.3 0.15 Fineness modulus Relative density (g/cm )
3

Sand (% passing) 99.8 98.2 93.4 80.3 34.4 2.0 1.92 2.62

RG (% passing) 76.7 47.0 28.0 15.6 8.8 4.4 4.19 2.49

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2.2 Mix proportions The mix proportions by weight for the control self-compacting architectural mortar (AM) was white cement:metakaolin:sand:water = 0.9:0.1:2.0:0.4. The details of mix proportions of all AM mixtures are presented in Table 3. The binder to aggregate ratio was kept at 1:2 throughout the study. All the mixtures were proportioned with a fixed water-to-binder (W/B) ratio of 0.4 and the superplasticizer dosage was varied in order to obtain the targeted minislump flow values of 25010 mm. The RG was added to the AM mixtures as a partial replacement of the sand at the level of 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% by mass. For MK-20 mix, the mix proportion was similar to that of RG-100 except MK was used to replace 20% of white cement Table 3: Mix proportion of AM mixtures Notation RG-0 RG-25 RG-50 RG-75 RG-100 MK-20 W/B 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 0.4 Binder WC 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.9 0.8 MK 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.2 Aggregate Sand 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0 0 RG 0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.0 5.5 4.0 2.5 1.5 1.0 1.8 SP (%) Mini slump (mm) 243 258 257 259 240 250

2.3 Mixtures preparation, casting and curing Initially, the fine aggregate and binder materials were mixed in a standard rotating drum type mixer for about 90s to attain a uniform dry mix. After that, water (superplasticizer thoroughly pre-mixed) was added and the whole mixture was further mixed for 90s. To ensure a uniform mixture was attained, the mixture was further mixed manually using a steel trowel. Finally, the mixture was mixed for an additional 120s to complete the mixing sequence. The fluidity of the freshly prepared mortar was evaluated immediately after the mixing was completed. The fresh AM mixtures were used to prepare prisms for hardened properties testing. After casting, all the specimens were covered by a plastic sheet and left at the laboratory environment at 233C and 75 relative humility. All the specimens were then demoulded one day after casting and were cured in a water tank at temperature of 253C until the age of testing. 2.4 Test methods A mini-slump flow cone with an internal diameter of 100 mm was used to evaluate the fluidity of AM as described by EFNARC [7]. The spread diameters of the freshly prepared mortar in two perpendicular directions were measured. Occurrence of segregation and/or bleeding, if any, was visually observed and noted. The flexural strength was determined on three 4040160 mm test prism specimens according to ASTM C348 [8]. A displacement rate of 0.10 mm/min was set and the test was performed at 7 and 28 days after casting. A modified British standard (BS ISO, Part 8: 1920)

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method was used for the drying shrinkage test [9]. The drying shrinkage values of three 2525285 mm mortar specimens were measured at 1st, 4th, 7th, 28th, 56th days after curing in an environmental chamber with a temperature of 23C and a RH of 55%. An accelerated mortar bar test corresponding to ASTM C1260 [10] (by keeping three 2525285 mm mortar bar specimens in 1 N NaOH solution at 80 C until the testing time at 1, 4, 7, 14, 21 and 28 days) was used to determine the ASR reactivity of the specimens. 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

3.1 Fresh properties The test results of mini-slump flow diameter of all AM mixtures are presented in Table 3. All the AM mixtures achieved the mini-slump flow diameter of 240 260 mm specified by EFNARC [7]. It can be seen from the results that the dosage of superplasticizer (SP) required decreased with increasing RG replacement levels. The fluidity of AM mixtures increased with the presence of RG was mainly due to the lower water absorption rate of the smooth and impermeable glass surface. On the other hand, the fluidity of the mortar was reduced with the increase in MK content. No bleeding or segregation was detected for all the AM mixtures. 3.2 Surface colour and aesthetic performance Fig. 1 shows the surface colour and aesthetic performance of the AM incorporating different percentages of RG. It can be clearly observed that as the replacement ratio of sand by RG increased, the surface colour and aesthetic appearance improved. This could be of useful if the mortar is used for architectural applications.

Figure 1: Architectural mortar featuring different replacement levels of RG

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3.3 Flexural strength The effect of RG and MK replacements on flexural strength at 7 and 28 days are shown in Fig. 2. There was a gradual reduction in flexural strength with the increase in RG and MK content at all ages. When the RG were used as sand replacement at 25%, 50%, 75% and 100%, reductions of 8.5%, 16.5%, 27.5% and 37.6% in 28-day flexural strength respectively were observed. This is primarily due the weaker bonding between surface of the RG and the cement paste. Also, the flexural strength decreased with an increase in MK content from 10% to 20%. Li and Ding [11] reported that concrete achieved the best strength performance with 10% MK replacement.

10

Flexural Strength (MPa)

7-day

28-day

8 6 4 2 0 RG-0 RG-25 RG-50 RG75 RG-100 MK-20

Figure 2: Effect of RG and MK replacement level on flexural strength at 7 and 28 days 3.4 Drying shrinkage The drying shrinkage curves of AM with varying replacement levels of RG and MK are shown in Fig. 3. It is clearly noted that the increase in RG content resulted in a reduction in drying shrinkage values of the mortar bars. This is primarily due to the lower water absorption capacity of RG cullet [12]. There was a slight decrease in drying shrinkage when the percentage of MK was increased from 10% to 20%. This is because inclusion of MK could lower the amount of evaporable water due to the slower rate of hydration of MK [13]. The 56day drying shrinkage for all AM specimens satisfied (< 0.075%) the Australian Standard AS 3600 [14].

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0.08 0.07

Length Change (%)

0.06 0.05 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.01 0 0 10 20 30 40 50 60

R G -0 R G -50 R G -100 R G -25 R G -75 MK -20

Day

Figure 3: Drying shrinkage curves of AM 3.5 Expansion due to alkali-silica reaction The ASR expansion results are shown in Fig. 4. The ASR expansion noticeably increased with an increase in RG content. At the age of 14 days, all the mortar bars mixes showed ASR expansion below the permissible limits (0.10 %), except for the RG-100 even when 10% MK had already been used to replace cement. As expected, the highest ASR expansion value of 0.60% was recorded for RG-100 mix. It could be observed that scattered ASR cracks formed extensively in the surface mortar bars of RG-75 and RG-100. But when the MK content was increased to 20%, a marked reduction of ASR expansion was recorded

0.70 0.60
RG-0 RG-25 RG-50 RG-75 RG-100 MK-20

Length Change (%)

0.50 0.40 0.30 0.20 0.10 0.00 -0.10 0 5

10

15

20

25

30

Day

Figure 4: ASR expansion of AM

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4.

CONCLUSIONS

The self-compacting method seems to be suitable for producing architectural mortar containing up to 100% recycled glass. The results showed that the presence of RG in the mortar increased the fluidity of the fresh mortar. The inclusion RG and MK caused a reduction in flexural strength but the drying shrinkage was also reduced. Although increase in RG content may cause excessive ASR expansion, but it ca be controlled by increasing the MK content. This study has demonstrated that recycled glass can be used in architectural mortar. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank the The Hong Kong Polytechnic University for funding supports. REFERENCES
[1] Environmental Protection Department., 'Monitoring Solid Waste in Hong Kong', Waste statistics for 2006 (The Government Printer, 2006). [2] Park, S.B., Lee, B.C. and Kim, J.H., 'Studies on mechanical properties of concrete containing waste glass aggregate', Cement and Concrete Research 34 (12) (2004) 2181-2189. [3] Ismail, Z.Z. and AL-Hashmi, E.A., 'Recycling of waste glass as a partial replacement for fine aggregate in concrete', Waste Management 29 (2) (2009) 655-659. [4] Limbachiya, M.C., 'Bulk engineering and durability properties of washed glass sand concrete', Construction and Building Materials 23 (2) (2009) 1078-1083. [5] Shao, Y., Lefort, T., Moras, S. and Damian. R., 'Studies on concrete containing ground waste glass', Cement and Concrete Research 30 (1) (2000) 91-100. [6] Byars, E.A., Zhu, H.Y. and Morales, B., 'CONGLASSCRETE I', Final Report (The Waste & Resources Action Programme, UK, 2004). [7] EFNARC, 'Specification and guidelines for self-compacting concrete', European Federation for Specialist Construction Chemicals and Concrete System (Norfolk, UK, February 2002). [8] ASTM C348, 'Standard test method for flexural strength of hydraulic-cement mortars', American Society of Testing Materials (US, 2008). [9] ASTM C 1260, 'Standard test method for potential alkali reactivity of aggregates (mortar-bar method) ', American Society of Testing Materials (US, 2007). [10] BS ISO 1920-8, 'Determination of drying shrinkage of concrete for samples prepared in the field or in the laboratory', British Standard Institution (UK, 2009). [11] Li, Z. and Ding, Z., 'Property improvement of Portland cement by incorporating with metakaolin and slag', Cement and Concrete Research 33 (4) (2003) 579-584. [12] Kou, S.C. and Poon, C.S., 'Properties of self-compacting concrete prepared with recycled glass aggregate', Cement and Concrete Composites 31 (2) (2009) 107-113. [13] Brooks, J.J. and Johari, M.M.A., 'Effect of metakaolin on creep and shrinkage of concrete', Cement and Concrete Composites 23 (6) (2001) 495-502. [14] AS 3600, 'Concrete structures-incorporating AMD 1: May 2002 and AMD 2', Australia Standard (Australia, 2004).

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