Treatment and application of recycled concrete fines

The main objective of this research is to use recycled concrete fines (RCF) to replace part of the cement in new mortar recipes through a thermal treatment method. Cement is the most energy-consuming component of concrete, with high CO2 emission during it manufacturing. If a certain amount of cement can be replaced by recycled concrete fines, it will increase the recycled material application level and thus help environment protection and natural resources preservation. There are several factors that can affect the compressive strength test results: cement type, water cement ratio, specimen size, mould type, the specimen surface, curing conditions, type of testing machine, the stress rate, etc. Mortar samples were tested by following the European standard EN 196-1 to keep the test conditions constant. RCF treated with different temperatures were used to replace part of the cement in the standard mortar samples containing either OPC or slag- or fly-ash blended cements