Anhydrous ethanol as a medium used to grind soda-lime glass for cement-based materials preparation: Evaluating its rheological behavior by the Herschel-Bulkley and Modified-Bingham models

This study reports a method that solid waste grinding with anhydrous ethanol, and waste glass is taken as an example. The waste glass was ground in anhydrous ethanol for 60 min, and the ground powder was added to cement by 3 wt%, 5 wt%, 7 wt%, and 10 wt%, and then mixed with quartz sand to prepare cement mortar. In this study, the rheological properties, self-shrinkage, and mechanical properties of samples of waste glass cement (NWGC) were investigated, and the hydration heat, mass loss, chemical composition, and pore structure of the noted samples were analyzed. The results show that the particle size of WG can be ground to 0.1 mu m by the technology of grinding with anhydrous ethanol, which is conducive for WG particles to contact with cement particles, thus promoting the hydration reaction. The Modified-Bingham model is suitable for fitting the rheological properties of the NWGC group, and the fitting coefficient reaches 0.98. The addition of WG after grinding improves the strength of the NWGC group. Especially the sample NWGC6-10 when curing for 1 day, whose strength activity index is about 200% higher than that of sample Control. At 192 h, the autogenous shrinkage of the NWGC group decreases by 6-8 mm3/g compared with that of the sample Control. Meanwhile, the ground WG effectively fills the pore in cement mortar, which improves the compactness of cement mortar. This provides a new treatment method for waste utilization.

Automated summary

This study reports a method of grinding solid waste with anhydrous ethanol, using waste glass as an example. The results show that grinding waste glass particles to a small size using anhydrous ethanol promotes better contact with cement particles, increasing hydration reaction. Adding ground waste glass to cement improves its strength and compactness, and reduces shrinkage.