Preparation and Properties of Sintering Brick from Iron Tailings

The main objective of this paper was to investigate the addition of iron tailing sintering brick production, in the presence of clay, coal refuses and bentonite. Mixtures containing raw materials of sintering brick and iron tailings were prepared at different proportions (up to 55 wt %), fired at 980°C. Freeze/thaw durability, drying and firing shrinkages were investigated as well as the loss on ignition, bulk density and compressive strength of the fired samples. Their mechanical and microstructure properties were also investigated by differential thermal analysis (DTA/TG), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results showed that compressive strengths of the brick samples are higher than that required by the standards MU15 of GB5101-2003, up to 21.79Mpa with 40% iron tailings corresponding to its higher bulk density completely. Moreover, the results showed that it has such advantages as no lime blowing, uniform color, good freeze/thaw resistance and slight universal frost.