Project Info
Sustainable Use of Earth Resource Materials – Glass from Tailings (IMURF)
Katharina Pfaff | kpfaff@mines.edu
Priscilla Nelson | pnelson@mines.edu
The Earth’s natural resources are finite. At the current rate of growth, we will need eight (8) earths worth of resources to achieve the global quality of life desired by 2050. Recycling and waste product usage is not developed at this point. This grand challenge focuses on the global nexus of energy/water/food and minerals.
Traditional mining disposes of waste rock and tailings from mineral processing operations at or near the mine site, which often cause environmental problems. Tailings principally consist of a mixture of rock fragments and minerals that remain after the valuable minerals have been recovered in the mineral processing facility. In most cases of metals mining, the minerals that make up tailings are predominantly silicates – plagioclase, biotite, amphibole and pyroxene – similar to the mineralogy of basalt.
The “Glass from Tailings” team at Mines is investigating the recycled use of mill tailings to produce valuable products. Our plan is to characterize the tailings, melt them, and then pull fiber (comparable to how fiberglass is manufactured). These fibers can be fabricated into fabric, building materials, rebar, ballistic cloth, and other chemically inert products that have advantageous properties. Fibers from melted rock have been commercially produced from basalt since the 1950’s, and these fibers have proven to have favorable fireproof, ballistic and tensile strength characteristics, and corrosion resistance, a mafic material consisting principally of plagioclase and pyroxene minerals. The use of tailings has the environmental and economic benefit of reducing waste and supports sustainable mining operations. This project can also be important for future planetary surface missions to the Moon or Mars, for example, for which transported building materials can be augmented by the use of local soil and rock, in order to reduce launch mass and expand mission capability.
For this project to be successful, expertise in mineral and materials characterization, geology and geological engineering, mining, metallurgical and materials engineering is of utmost importance. This project can only be successful if different disciplines who have knowledge in tailing materials and their mineralogy work together with experts in metallurgy and materials engineering.
Two members of the “Glass from Tailings” team will be directly involved in this IMURF project. This team (PIs Nelson and Pfaff) has been working together through various stages of project development and data production. The successful students will be mentored by faculty from Mining Engineering (Nelson) and Geology and Geological Engineering (Pfaff). PI Pfaff will supervise the undergraduate research students in how to use our SEM- and XRF-based analytical equipment in the Mineral and Materials Characterization Facility, and PI Nelson will supervise mineral processing and physical property testing. The undergraduate research students will participate in discussions and present their own findings to their co-mentor once per month and at the end of Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 to the entire “Glass from Tailings” team.
A multitude of research projects and applications can be found in the literature, detailing the composition, properties and applications of basalt fiber and its composites (Wei et al., 2011; Banibayat et al., 2014; Vasil’eva et al., 2014; Afroz et al., 2017; Tirillo et al., 2017; Gao et al., 2018). Compared to other high-performance materials, basalt fiber is a healthy and environmentally friendly material, which is widely used in military and civilian fields (Thorhallsson et al., 2013; Zhu and Tian, 2013; Wlodarczyk and Jedrzejewski, 2016; Ouyang et al., 2017; Raleaonkar et al., 2018; Xiaomin et al., 2019). According to these and other studies, basalt fiber (compared with glass fiber, carbon fiber and aramid fiber) has good mechanical properties, acid-alkali resistance, excellent electrical properties, high wave permeability, non-conductive, and excellent sound insulation and heat insulation performance (Li et al., 2018).
A number of papers have been published exploring the possibility of utilizing tailings to produce porous bricks with low thermal conductivity (Zhu et al., 2017; Li et al., 2019), lightweight sintered glass-ceramics (Cetin et al., 2015; Ye et al., 2015; Fontes et al., 2019), glass-ceramic foams (Xi et al., 2018), aluminum matrix composites (AMCs; Wang et al., 2016), glass-ceramics (Shi et al., 2017) and other materials.
Only few studies have been published so far investigating the compositional characteristics of raw tailings material and the feasibility of melting tailings, red mud and slag for producing glass fibers and their properties (i.e., Vasil’eva et al., 2014; Alfonso et al., 2018; Dai et al., 2018; Kim et al., 2018; Deng et al., 2019; Karhu et al., 2019), including potential pre-processing and cleanup procedures necessary prior to melting (i.e., Holland et al., 2019).
References:
Afroz, M., Patnaikuni, I., Venkatesan, S., 2017, Chemical durability and performance of modified basalt fiber in concrete medium. Construction and Building Materials, 154, 191-203.
Alfonso, P., Tomasa, O., Garcia-Valles, M., Tarrago, M., Martinez, S., Esteves, H., 2018, Potential of tungsten tailings as glass raw materials. Materials Letter, 228, 456-458.
Banibayat, P., Patnaik, A., 2014, Variability of mechanical properties of basalt fiber reinforced polymer bars manufactured by wet-layup method. Materials and Design, 56, 898-906.
Cetin, S., Marangoni, M., Bernardo, E., 2015, Lightweight glass-ceramic tiles from the sintering of mining tailings. Ceramics International, 41, 5294-5300.
Dai, W., Li, Y., Cang, D., Lu, X., Zhao, G., Guo, J., 2018, Research on a novel modifying furnace for converting hot slag directly into glass-ceramics. Journal of Cleaner Production, 172, 169-177.
Deng, L., Zhang, Z., Zhang, M., Jia, X., Zhang, Z., Li, B., 2019, Structure and properties of in situ synthesized FeSi2-diopside glass ceramic composites from Bayan Obo tailings, blast furnace slag, and flyash. Journal of Alloys and Compounds, 785, 932-943.
Fontes, W.C., de Carvalho, J.M.F., Andrande, L.C.R., Segadaes, A.M., Peixoto, R.A.F., 2019, Assessment of the use potential of iron ore tailings in the manufacture of remic tiles: From tailings-dams to ‘brown porcelain’. Construction and Building Materials, 206, 111-121.
Gao, W-Y., Hu, K-X., Dai, J-G., Dong, K., Yu, K-Q., Fang, L-J., 2018, Repair of fire-damaged RC slabs with basalt fabric-reinforced shotcrete. Construction and Building Materials, 185, 79-92.
Holland, K., Eric, R.H., Taskinen, P., Jokilaakso, A., 2019, Upgrading copper slag cleaning tailings for re-use. Minerals Engineering, 133, 35-42.
Karhu, J., Lagerbom, J., Solismaa, S., Honkanen, M., Ismailov, A., Raisanen, M-L., Huttunen-Saarivirta, E., Levanen, E., Kivikyoto-Reponen, P., 2019, Mining tailings as raw materials for reaction-sintered aluminosilicate ceramics: Effect of mineralogical composition on microstructure and properties. Ceramics International, 45, 4840-4848.
Kim, Y., Kim, M., Sohn, J., Park, H., 2018, Applicability of gold tailings, waste limestone, red mud, and ferronickel slag for producing glass fibers. Journal of Cleaner Production, 203, 957-965.
Li, Z., Ma, J., Ma, H., Xu, X., 2018, Properties and applications of basalt fiber and its composites. GBEM IOP. Conf. Series: Earth and Environmental Science, 186, 012052.
Li, R., Zhou, Y., Li, C., Li, S., Huang, Z., 2019, Recycling of industrial waste iron tailings in porous bricks with low thermal conductivity. Construction and Building Materials, 212, 43-50.
Ouyang, L-J., Gao, W-Y., Zhen, B., Lu, Z-D., 2017, Seismic retrofit of square reinforced concrete columns using basalt and carbon fiber-reinforced polymer sheets: A comparative study. Composite Structures, 162, 294-307.
Ralegaonkar, R., Gavali, H., Aswath, P., Abolmaali, S., 2018, Application of chopped basalt fibers in reinforced mortar: A review. Construction and Building Materials, 164, 589-602.
Shi, J., He, F., Ye, C., Hu, L., Xie, J., Yang, H., Liu, X., 2017, Preparation and characterization of CaO-Al2O3-SiO2 glass-ceramics from molybdenum tailings. Materials Chemistry and Physics, 197, 57-64.
Thorhallsson, E., Erlendsson, J.O., Erlendsson, O., 2013, Basalt fiber introduction. Reykjavik University & Iceland GeoSurvey, p. 6.
Tirillo, J., Ferrante, I., Sarasini, F., Lampani, I., Barbero, E., Sanchez-Saez, S., Valente, T., Gaudenzi, P., 2017, High velocity impact behavior of hybrid basalt-carbon/epoxy composites. Composite Structures, 168, 305-312.
Vasil’eva, A.A., Kychkin, A.K., Anan’eva, E.S., Lebedev, M.P., 2014., Investigation into the properties of basalt of the Vasil’evskoe deposit in Yakutia as the raw material for obtaining continuous fibers. Theoretical Foundations of Chemical Engineering, 48, 667-670.
Wang, K., Li, W., Du, J., Tang, P., Chen, J., 2016, Preparation, thermal analysis and mechanical properties of in-situ Al2O3/Sio2(p)/Al composites fabricated by using zircon tailing sand. Materials and Design, 99, 303-313.
Wei, B., Cao, H., Song, S., 2011, Degradation of basalt fibre and glass fibre/epoxy resin composites in seawater. Corrosion Science, 53, 426-431.
Wlodarczyk, M. and Jedrzejewski, I., 2016, Concrete slabs strengthened with basalt fibres – experimental tests results. Pocedia Engineering, 153, 866-873.
Xi, C., Zhen, F., Xu, J., Yang, W., Peng, Y., Li, Y., Li, P, Zhen, Q., Baskir, S., Liu, J.L., 2018, Preparation of glass-ceramic foams using extracted titanium tailing and glass waste as raw materials. Construction and Building Materials, 190, 896-909.
Xiaomin, M., Xin, L., Shiqiang, L., Rujiang, L., Zhihua, W., Guiying, W., 2019, Blast response of gradient honeycomb sandwich panels with basalt fiber metal laminates as skins. International Journal of Impact Engineering, 123, 126-139.
Ye, C., He, F., Shu, H., Qi, H., Zhang, Q., Song, P., Xie, J., 2015, Preparation and properties of sintered glass-ceramics containing Au-Cu tailing waste. Materials and Design, 86, 782-787.
Zhu, J. and Tian, Y., 2012, Applications of advanced composite materials in bullet-proof fields and their study. Advanced Materials Research, 391-392, 242-245.
Zhu, M., Wang, H., Liu, J., Ji, R., Wang, X., 2017, Preparation and characterization of permeable bricks from gangue and tailings. Construction and Building Materials, 148, 484-491.
Grand Challenge: Engineer the tools of scientific discovery
Student Preparation
Qualifications
A background in Mining, Metallurgical or Materials Engineering and/or Geology and Geological Engineering. Interest in mining, tailings or minerals would be good.
Time Commitment
4–5 hours/week
Skills/Techniques Gained
The successful students (two are requested) will become familiar with the state-of-the-art Minerals and Materials Characterization Facility in the Department of Geology and Geological Engineering. The Facility is equipped with a sample preparation facility, multiple microscopes, a field-emission SEM, two SEM-based quantitative automated mineralogy systems, a mapping micro-XRF and multiple hand-held XRF systems. The student(s) will be able to prepare and analyze sample material and interpret data, putting them into context. SEM-based techniques are the most widely used analytical technique in industry today, given the successful student(s) a clear advantage on the job market or graduate school applications over their peers.
– This student will take the lead on the mineralogy and geochemical characterization
Mentoring Plan
The undergraduate research project (Fall 2020 and Spring 2021) will be subdivided into three general Milestones with discrete goals:
a) August through October 2020 – Learning:
– Working in a Mineral and Materials Characterization Facility, including but not limited to safety training.
– Sample preparation for (1) subsequent microscopy and micro-analytical work, or (2) for mineral processing and physical property evaluation.
– Organizational skills and preparatory work to ensure success and high-quality data generation and literature review.
b) November 2020 through February 2021 – Learning/Analysis:
– Continued literature review and achievement of information literacy, data analysis and critical thinking.
– Training of effective communication skills.
– (1) SEM- and XRF-based analytical techniques utilization, or (2) mineral processing and physical property testing.
c) March through May 2021 – Analysis/Synthesis/Presentation:
– Data interpretation, critical thinking during data analysis and quantitative reasoning skills.
– Data presentation – quantitative reasoning and scientific reasoning
– Effective communication skills
The undergraduate research student(s) will be closely working with PIs Nelson and Pfaff and graduate student assistants. The students will participate in our research group meetings (weekly) and in quarterly meetings with stakeholders. The graduate student assistants will train the undergraduate research students in sample preparation. PI Pfaff will train the undergraduate research student in how to use our SEM- and XRF-based analytical equipment and PI Nelson will supervise mineral processing and physical property testing. The undergraduate research students will participate in discussions and present their own findings to their co-mentor once per month and at the end of Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 to the entire Tailings to Glass team.