Manufacture and performance of lightweight aggregate from waste drill cuttings

Abstract

This research investigated the technical feasibility of transforming waste drill cuttings into lightweight aggregate. Drill cuttings produced from the North Sea oil field were dried, ball milled, formed into pellets and fired at temperatures between 1160 and 1190°C. Physical properties of the manufactured lightweight aggregate, including particle density, water absorption and compressive strength, were determined. The drill cuttings had a typical evaporite composition containing high concentrations of chloride salts. This limits the potential for using the as-received drill cutting samples in lightweight aggregate production as the products formed show high levels of leaching. The addition of a washing pre-treatment to reduce the leaching of chloride ions was necessary. Washing also reduced the initial sintering temperature and improved lightweight aggregate properties. Sintering at 1180°C produced lightweight aggregate with particle density of 1.29 g/cm³, water absorption of 3.6% and compressive strengths of 4.4 MPa. The research showed that lightweight aggregate manufacturing represents a resource efficient option for the reuse of waste drill cuttings and provides significant material saving and landfill diversion.

Cold-bonding process for treatment and reuse of waste materials: Technical designs and applications of pelletized products

“…LWA can be produced through pelletization which is an agglomeration phenomena that occurs to moist waste fines containing a binder (Baykal & Döven, 2000). The pelletized LWA product can then be obtained by sintering, which involves heating the aggregates after pelletization, or by cold-bonding which allows LWA pellets to form at ambient temperature (Ayati, Molineux, Newport, & Cheeseman, 2019;. Despite the rapid production of a readily usable product by sintering, the high temperatures (900-1400 °C) needed are a disadvantage compared to the cold-bonding process which requires less energy consumption and reduces secondary pollution formation (Thomas & Harilal, 2015).…”

Optimum Bloating-Activation Zone of Artificial Lightweight Aggregate by Dynamic Parameters

“…Artificial lightweight aggregate materials on the market are mainly produced by sintering in a rotary kiln using slate or shale. Recently, many studies have focused on various types of solid waste such as plastic waste [1], sewage sludge [2], coal-fired power plant ash [3,4], drill cuttings [5], mining tailings [6] or carbon fiber mineral waste [7].…”

Rapid sintering of weathered municipal solid waste incinerator bottom ash and rice husk for lightweight aggregate manufacturing and product properties

“…Hence, water absorption (wt.%) can be thought of as equivalent to the percentage of RH (wt.%) added as the bloating agent. All the formulations assessed in this study had lower water absorption than some commercial LWA described in the literature (Ayati et al, 2019;, which is a very desirable physical property in the production of lightweight concrete.…”