Industrial By-Products as Non-Conventional Supplementary Cementitious Material

The extensive efforts on reducing the carbon footprint of cement production have motivated the investigations on the use of supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) as additive and/or substitute in cement blends. However, previous studies were focused on limited types of SCM including natural pozzolans, ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) and fly ash – which could readily exhibit reactivity in cementitious systems. In this article, a review on the advances in the valorisation of novel industrial by-products (non-ferrous slag, municipal incinerator bottom ash, and jarosite waste) are presented to provide solution in reducing the volume of industrial landfills while creating greener materials for building applications. The second part of this paper demonstrates a case study applying exergy to compare the footprint of the flowsheets derived from the valorisation of industrial by-products as SCM.