Title
Recycling waste tyre polymer for production of fibre reinforced cemented tailings backfill in green mining
Author
Guo, Z. (TU Delft Rivers, Ports, Waterways and Dredging Engineering; Northeastern University)
Qiu, Jingping (Northeastern University)
Kirichek, Alex (TU Delft Rivers, Ports, Waterways and Dredging Engineering) 
Zhou, Hao (Shougang Group Co., Ltd.)
Liu, C. (TU Delft Materials and Environment)
Yang, Lei (Johns Hopkins University)
Date
2023
Abstract
The increasing amount of solid waste, e.g., waste tyres from car industry and tailings from mine operations, causes substantial environmental and societal issues. The recycled tyre polymer fibre (RTPF) reinforced cemented tailings backfill (CTB) is a kind of composite that can treat waste tyres and tailings simultaneously and realize green mining, but its engineering properties have not been well understood. In this study, the rheology (i.e., static and dynamic yield stress, and structural build-up), strength (i.e., uniaxial and triaxial compressive, splitting tensile and flexural strengths), microstructure, and life cycle of RTPF reinforced CTB are comprehensively evaluated. For comparison, the engineering performance of the commonly used polypropylene fibre (PPF) reinforced CTB in mines is tested. The experimental results demonstrate that incorporating 0.6 wt% RTPF into CTB can achieve comparable fluidity and strength to the CTB reinforced with 0.3 wt% PPF at reduced cost and improved sustainability. A strength enhancement approach for RTPF reinforced CTB is also developed by adjusting the viscosity of suspending CTB before the addition of RTPF. With this approach, the splitting tensile strength increases by 68 %. The results obtained from this study pave the way for promoting the recycling of abandoned waste tyres and the safe design of backfill structures in mines.
Subject
Solid waste utilization
Recycled Tyre polymer fibre
Cemented tailings backfill
Rheology
Strength
Microstructure
To reference this document use:
http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:c968a864-bee6-4bcb-8c2a-85b073bbdaed
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.168320
Embargo date
2024-05-08
ISSN
0048-9697
Source
Science of the Total Environment, 908
Bibliographical note
Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.
Part of collection
Institutional Repository
Document type
journal article
Rights
© 2023 Z. Guo, Jingping Qiu, Alex Kirichek, Hao Zhou, C. Liu, Lei Yang