Abstract

Every year, billions of tons of waste are generated around the world. The production of these wastes has increased incredibly over time because of rapid urbanization, population growth and industrial development. The management of these huge quantities of waste is a great challenge to the producing countries. Morocco has a rich subsoil in various mineral resources distributed throughout the kingdom [1]. The main mining products are Phosphate, Coal, Lead, Iron, Zinc, Copper and Nickel [1]. There are officially 240 [2] mining sites in the country, among them 200 closed and abandoned sites. Today, several storage sites have been generated in the country. The wastes generated are mainly: coal ash, iron slag, lead slag and phosphogypsum [1,3-5]. The landfilling of these wastes directly threatens the environment [6] and causes additional costs for quarry management. In this work, we focus on the slag produced by the Sonasid steel plant in the Jorf Lasfar area of EL Jadida city In Morocco. This plant treats scrap metal to produce steel. The overall rate of slag produced by this company is 100,000t/year [4]. We distinguish between white slag and black slag. The black slag has been the subject of a previous study, which allowed its use in roads as a foundation and surface layer [3,4], while the white slag is still stored in the dumps. To minimise the risk of landfill, we carried out this experimental study to test the possibility of recycling white slag in mortars. Our results show that white slag can substitute cement with percentages of 5 and 10%.

Keywords:Mining waste; White slag; Environmental risk; Recovery; Mortar