Environmental benefits and mechanical performance of cement mortars with tungsten mining residues incorporation

Secondary mining resources have been largely applied for the development of alternative building products. Additionally, its reuse versatility increases the potential on the future circular economy generation. Herein, mining residues from Panasqueira mine were applied in the formulation of cement-based mortars, according to EN 196-1 standard.Mechanical performance of mortars was analysed after the replacement of the conventional binder (cement) by mining residues in 10, 25 and 50 % (v/v). As expected, compressive and flexural strength decrease when compared to the reference mortar (100 % cement) in all cases.
This decrease was more significant in terms of compressive strength (between 27 % and 71 %), when compared to flexural strength results (between 18 % and 56 %). Furthermore, an environmental approach of secondary mining resources incorporation on mortars, regarding Portugal and Poland data, was carried out. The savings in terms of primary resources may promote to minimise energy impacts. When mining residues replace cement in 10 % is possible to save 0.3 or 1.9 Mt of cement production and 0.14 or 0.89 CO2 Mt emissions, in Portugal and Poland, respectively.