No abstract

Dealing with waste materials, particularly hazardous waste, is a serious problem. Disposal areas keep growing, and the costs incurred are high. Disposing of such waste reduces negative environmental impacts and offers considerable financial savings. This paper focuses on the possibilities of incorporating pollutants found in hazardous wastes as fillers in coatings based on polymers (epoxide and polyurethane). These coatings are intended mainly for concrete and metal bases and offer secondary protection against adverse weather conditions. Important physical and mechanical properties of the newly developed materials were determined; they include surface hardness, impact resistance, tensile properties, and chemical resistance. These properties were also compared to those of the reference filler. At the same time, the influence of aggressive media on the properties of these materials was observed, in particular on flexural characteristics. The microstructures of the developed coatings were tested using a high-resolution optical microscope, before and after exposure to the chemicals. The positive effect of using progressive fillers, such as solidified hazardous waste (a solidification product (SF)), was witnessed by their constructive contribution to the materials’ physical and mechanical properties. The use of solidification products is unambiguously advantageous from technical, ecological, and economical stand points (utilization of hazardous waste as a progressive filler instead of landfilling, improvement of tensile properties, reduction in the price of coating system, and incorporation of the pollutants into the polymer matrix).

The present research verified the possibility of using specially treated hazardous waste (solidification product) derived from a solidification agent (fly ash from fluidized bed combustion (FA)) and hazardous waste (end-product) as a filler in polymeric grout. Hazardous waste was pre-treated by solidification technology, while within the performed research, a total of two solidification paths were verified. One of them was a dry homogenisation (TOS1) and the other technology was wet granulation of the input materials (TOS2). The use of dry homogenization solidification technology, which is economically less demanding, seems to be more advantageous. Using such specially treated filler was verified by some selected tests and the results indicated grout with a relatively high compressive strength of about 50 MPa and a flexural strength of about 20 MPa. The developed polymeric grout also showed a very good adhesion to a cast basalt, which was tested by the pull-off test and subsequently observed in detail by optical microscope.

Within this work, it was experimentally verified that the waste from mineral wool board insulation production (WIRG) with high portion of glass recyclate (> 80%) and no organic material seems like ideal filler for polymer grouting materials. The main objective was to develop a progressive grout on epoxy basis with as high content of this secondary raw material as possible, while achieving physical and mechanical properties as e.g. very fast strength increase and high thermal resistance. With regard to the consistency of epoxy grout in the fresh state, three different filling were tested, namely 60%, 65% and 70%. The grout with lower filling is too fluid, and it is also disadvantageous from an economic point of view because a large amount of epoxy resin is used. On the other hand, at higher filing, it is not possible to mix the filler into epoxy resin properly. Setting of an optimal filler content in the mixture was performed mostly on the basis of the results of compressive and three-point flexural strength test. It was found out that the optimal amount of the filler is 65%. In case of the best formulation with optimal filler content (65% WIRG), the thermal resistance was monitored by determination of the glass transition temperature (Tg) by the dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) method. Furthermore, the optical microscope with high resolution was used to monitor filler distribution and homogeneity of the hardened developed epoxy grout.

No abstract