The Use of Tailings to Make Glass as an Alternative for Sustainable Environmental Remediation: The Case of Osor, Catalonia, Spain

Abstract

Tailings from the Osor fluorite mines release large amounts of potentially toxic elements into the environment. This work is a proposal to remove these waste materials and use them as a raw material in the manufacture of glass. The chemical composition of the tailings was determined by X-ray fluorescence and the mineralogy by X-ray diffraction. Waste materials have SiO2, Al2O3 and CaO contents suitable for a glass production, but Na as NaCO3 has to be added. Two glass formulations, with 80–90% of the residue and 10–20% Na2CO3, have been produced. The crystallization temperatures, obtained by differential thermal analysis, were 875 and 901 °C, and the melting temperatures were 1220 and 1215 °C for the G80-20 and G90-10 glasses, respectively. The transition temperatures of glass were 637 and 628 °C. The crystalline phases formed in the thermal treatment to produce devitrification were nepheline, plagioclase and diopside in the G80-20 glass, and plagioclase and akermanite-gehlenite in the G90-10 glass. The temperatures for the fixed viscosity points, the working temperatures and the coefficient of expansion were obtained. The chemical stability of the glass was tested and results indicate that the potentially toxic elements of the tailings were incorporated into the glass structure.