A Sustainable Autoclaved Material Made of Glass Sand

Abstract

Far-reaching technological progress, manufacturing, and rapidly advancing globalization dictate new conditions for the development and changes in the construction industry. Valorization of by-products and the use of secondary materials in the production of building materials have attracted a lot of attention. Silicate materials were assessed on the basis of their compressive property. An orthogonal compositional plan type 3k (with k = 2), that is, a full two-factor experiment was applied in order to carry out the compressive strength and bulk density tests. Glass sand was added to the silicate mass as a modification. The results show that the compressive strength was higher than that of traditional bricks. Scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive spectrometry SEM/EDS was used to study the microstructure, whereas the XRD analysis was applied to examine the structures. Laboratory tests were performed on samples with dimensions of 50 × 50 × 50 mm. The results show the bulk density increase to the value of 1.75 kg/dm3, which increases the acoustic performance of the new products. The results of the modifications also indicate changes in the structure of the new bricks. The reference sample contained α-quartz, zeolite, tobermorite 9A, and calcium aluminum silicate (Ca2Al4Si12O32), whereas the samples modified with glass sand, the presence of phases such as α-cristobalite, natrolite, tobermorite 11A, gyrolite, and analcite was recorded.