Possible Recycling of End-of-Life Dolomite Refractories by the Production of Geopolymer-Based Composites: Experimental Investigation

Production and characterization of geopolymers prepared by mixing metakaolin, end-of-life dolomite refractories, sodium silicate solution, and sodium hydroxide solution have been performed. The as-received refractory was crumbled in order to obtain products having, respectively, 250 μm, 1 mm, and 2.5 mm maximum particles size. Each batch of powder was added in different proportions to a blank geopolymeric matrix. It has been observed that the addition of waste refractory reduces workability of the reference refractory-free slurry. After hardening, only the set of samples prepared with powders with maximum size of 250 μm maintain integrity while the others resulted affected by the presence of fractures caused by volumetric instabilities; samples with composition R100 showed the highest compressive strength, whereas higher refractory addition lowers strength. Specific surface area appears independent by materials composition; conversely pore volume slightly increases with the addition of dolomite refractory powder. During the thermodilatometric tests all compositions display a shrinkage of about 0.1% between 170 and 400 °C; however, sintering starts at higher temperature (above 600 °C) and samples melt in the range between 650 and 750 °C as a function of their composition, thus showing that the resulting materials loose refractoriness with respect to both the reference geopolymer and the dolomite refractory. Graphical Abstract