Transforming Municipal Solid Waste into Construction Materials

Massoud Sofi, Ylias Sabri, Zhiyuan Zhou and Priyan Mendis
Additional contact information
Massoud Sofi: Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia
Ylias Sabri: Centre for Advanced Materials and Industrial Chemistry, School of Science, College of Science, Engineering & Health, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia
Zhiyuan Zhou: Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia
Priyan Mendis: Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria 3010, Australia

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-22

Abstract: Rapid urbanisation and the associated infrastructure development are creating a deficit of conventional construction materials and straining the natural resources. On the other hand, municipal solid waste (MSW) disposal poses a serious environmental problem. Landfilling of MSW is both costly and polluting. Incineration of MSW to generate energy is a commonly adopted approach. However, there are concerns associated with micro pollutants emitted from the combustion process. The carbon footprint of the process and the environmental cost–benefit balancing are disputable. There is clearly a need to adopt cost-effective alternatives to treat MSW. This paper proposes the potential application of “treated” MSW as an ingredient for construction materials. The treatment process involves placing MSW in an autoclave at 150 °C with 5 bars (0.5 MPa), followed by the separation of metals, plastics and glass for recycling purposes. The end-product, which is a semi-organic mixture (referred to as ‘biomass’), is passed through a vortex-oscillation system, which makes it more uniform as a material. Compressive testing of Portland cement-based pastes containing 10% and 15% biomass shows consistency in the results, demonstrating the potential use of biomass in construction materials.

Keywords: biomass; municipal solid waste; vortex; autoclave; construction materials (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/9/2661/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/9/2661/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:9:p:2661-:d:229743

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().