Microstructural Investigations Regarding Sustainable Recycling of Ceramic Slurry Collected from Industrial Waste Waters

Ceramic slurry wastes have a significant hazardous potential when dumped. Their recycling as raw material is a sustainable approach for the development of nature-friendly applications. The microstructure and mechanical properties play a key role in the success of this sustainable recycling. Ceramic slurry samples resulting from the wall and floor tiles production facility were analyzed. The mineral composition was investigated by XRD combined with mineralogical microscopy and the microstructure was investigated by SEM microscopy coupled with EDX spectroscopy and elemental mapping. The ceramic slurry contains: quartz, kaolinite, mullite and small amounts of lepidocrocite. Quartz and mullite particles have sizes in the range of 5–100 μm and kaolinite has small particles of around 1 to 30 μm. Iron hydroxide crystallized as lepidocrocite is finely distributed among kaolinite aggregates. It makes the slurry unable to be reused in the technological process because of the glaze staining risk, but it does not affect the material cohesion. Thus, the cylindrical samples were prepared at progressive compactions rates as follows: 1808.55; 1853.46; 1930.79 and 2181.24 kg/m 3 and dried. Thereafter, were subjected to a compression test with a lower compression strength of 0.75 MPa for lower density and a higher strength of 1.36 MPa for the higher density. Thus, slurry compaction enhances the kaolinite binding ability. The Young’s Modulus slightly decreases with the compaction increasing due to local microstructure rigidizing. This proves the binding ability of kaolinite, which properly embeds quartz and mullite particles into a coherent and resistant structure. The fractography analysis reveals that fracture starts on the internal pores at low compaction rates and throughout the kaolinite layer in the samples with high compactness. The observed properties indicate that the investigated ceramic slurry is proper as a clay-based binder for sustainable ecological buildings, avoiding the exploitation of new clay quarries. Also, it might be utilized for ecological brick production.