Feasibility Study of Developing Eco-Cement Using Electric ARC Furnace Oxidizing Slag as the Raw Material

Nowadays, the consumption of cement still increases significantly as surging demand arises from construction activities in the world with the depletion of many non-renewable resources and the emission of global carbon dioxide. Electric Arc Furnace Oxidizing Slag (EAFOS) is a by-product of Electric arc furnace steelmaking. In industrial consumption, the reuse of EAFOS is far less than its production. Therefore, this research is intended to replace the iron source of raw materials with EAFOS by 20%, 60%, and 100% of weight respectively to manufacture an environment-friendly cement. Besides, by examining the physical properties, composition analysis, and hardened properties test of the cement clinker after calcination, this research explores the feasibility of using EAFOS to develop an eco-cement. This research not only aims to reduce the resource loss caused by cement manufacturing but also aims to increase the reuse of EAFOS. Experiments results show that the addition of EAFOS can reduce the fineness of clinker by 1.1% ~ 4.0%, but has little influence on the specific gravity and alkali content of cement clinker. Besides, the cement coefficient and f-CaO content of clinker can be acceptable to the standard range except for the 100% iron replacement sample. Adding EAFOS can increase the content of C3S in the clinker. The condensation time can be shortened by the increasing of fineness due to high proportion EAFOS replacement. In addition, EAFOS can increase the strength of mortar by 22% to 27% at 28 days with little effect on drying shrinkage. From the test results, it can be concluded that EAFOS is as feasible as a cement raw material and has less of an impact on the performance of ecocement when used as a 60% iron substitute. © 2022, Chinese Institute of Civil and Hydraulic Engineering. All right reserved.