Reutilizing Waste Iron Tailing Powders as Filler in Mortar to Realize Cement Reduction and Strength Enhancement

Recently, the massive accumulation of waste iron tailings powder (WITP) has resulted in significant environmental pollution. To solve this problem, this paper proposes an original mortar replacement (M) method to reuse waste solids and reduce cement consumption. In the experiment, the author employed an M method which replaces water, cement, and sand with WITP under constant water/cement and found that the strength development can be significantly improved. Specifically, a mortar with 20% WITP replacement can obtain a 30.95% improvement in strength development. To study the internal mechanism, we performed experiments such as thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP), and SEM. The results demonstrate that the nucleation effect and pozzolanic effect of WITP can help promote cement hydration, and MIP reveals that WITP can effectively optimize pore structure. In addition, 1 kg 20% WITP mortar reduced cement consumption by 20%, which saves 19.98% of the economic cost. Comprehensively, our approach achieves the effective utilization of WITP and provides a favorable reference for practical engineering.