Recycling of waste glass as aggregate in cement-based materials

Glass is a common material made from natural resources such as sand. Although much of the waste glass is recycled to make new glass products, a large proportion is still being sent to landfill. Glass is a useful resource that is non-biodegradable, occupying valuable landfill space. To combat the waste glass that is heading to landfill, alternative recycling forms need to be investigated. The construction industry is one of the largest CO(2) emitters in the world, producing up to 8% of the global CO(2) to produce cement. The use of sand largely depletes natural resources for the creation of mortars or concretes. This review explores the possibilities of incorporating waste glass into cement-based materials. It was found waste glass is unsuitable as a raw material replacement to produce clinker and as a coarse aggregate, due to a liquid state being produced in the kiln and the smooth surface area, respectively. Promising results were found when incorporating fine particles of glass in cement-based materials due to the favourable pozzolanic reaction which benefits the mechanical properties. It was found that 20% of cement can be replaced with waste glass of 20 μm without detrimental effects on the mechanical properties. Replacements higher than 30% can cause negative impacts as insufficient amounts of CaCO(3) remain to react with the silica from the glass, known as the dilution effect. As the fine aggregate replacement for waste glass increases over 20%, the mechanical properties decrease proportionally; however, up to 20% has similar results to traditionally mixes.