Sustainability for Blast Furnace Slag: Use of Some Construction Wastes

Abstract Blast furnace slag is a by-product from blast furnaces which is used to produce iron. Blast furnace slag has been used extensively as a successful replacement material for Portland cement in concrete materials to improve durability, produce high strength and high performance concrete, and brings environmental and economic benefits together, such as resource conservation and energy savings. Construction wastes define as relatively clean and heterogeneous building materials which are generated from various construction activities. Among them, ceramic, brick, and marble wastes can be included. These kinds of wastes can be used successfully as replacement materials in the cement mortar or concrete mixing. The use of alternative aggregate is a natural step towards solving part of the depletion of natural aggregate, and the alternative aggregate processed from waste materials which would appear to be an even more sensible solution. Recycled aggregates, such as ceramic, brick, and marble wastes, in the blast furnace slag concrete have been investigated in the limited number of studies to date. In the literature, use of these wastes in the concrete produced by blast furnace slag, as replacement materials in cement have not found adequate attention. Therefore, in the present study, the effects of ceramic, brick, and marble wastes used as fine/coarse aggregates on the properties of blast furnace slag investigated. Thus, the contribution of these wastes on the sustainability of blast furnace slag concrete was presented in a detailed manner. Consequently, construction waste aggregates and blast furnace slag can be used to improve the mechanical properties, workability, and chemical resistance of the conventional concrete mixtures. Since the construction waste and blast furnace slag wastes are available in vast amounts in Turkey, it is economically and environmentally suitable to use these materials as aggregates in the production of more durable concrete mixtures.