Vitrification and sinter-crystallization of fly ash with glass cullet

Abstract

Nowadays, in this second decade of this century, the industrial residues they continue generating environmental problems. Such of these wastes (glass cullet and bottom or fly ashes from the coal power stations) are still abundant and not definitive applications or solutions for its immobilizing have been given, though a considerable amount of research has been conducted in the last years. One of the promising applications proposed by laboratories research has been their potential for being used in the construction industry.1,2 With respect the glass cullet from the conventional glass there is abundant research carried out in the last decades of 20th and beginning of this 21st century.3–5 Vitrification process has been demonstrated is an adequate processing method for inertize toxic and abundant residues and even to facilitate their recycling as secondary raw materials in ceramics and glasses industries.6 Transforming of starting glasses after vitrification into glass-ceramics by controlled thermal treatment is possible to reach immobilizing of a wide range of industrial wastes (mineral residues, sludges from dumps, slags, ashes,). Besides, the low cost and great availability of waste make these glass-ceramics materials very attractive from an economical and technological point of view, so synthetic high-performance materials with broad applications in construction and civil engineering can be obtained from residues.7 Therefore, it has been the aim of this research to explore the synthesis of a new type of glass-ceramic by the sinter-crystallization process from soda-lime-silicate glass and several ashes from a coal power thermal station located in Andorra (Teruel, Spain). Materials and methods