Developing iron-rich cement clinker & understanding ferrite for the valorisation & upcycling of steel slags (FeRICH)

水泥和钢铁行业是英国的基础，是最大的制造业（按质量计算），对建设我们的基础设施至关重要。水泥生产是资源、碳和能源密集型产业，需要彻底转型才能实现可持续发展。在可预见的未来，钢铁行业每年生产高达100万吨的炼钢副产品。这些废物需要妥善管理，以提高资源效率，并避免填埋和随后的生态毒性。虽然钢渣的有效利用率约为80%，但仍有很大一部分未得到利用。此外，大部分矿渣是用于低价值产品，例如骨料，但它们的化学和矿物学是可变的，在没有进一步处理的情况下，它们对材料特性的影响是不可预测的。此外，全国各地还有超过1.9亿吨的遗留钢铁渣。到2050年，英国水泥行业每年将减少420万吨二氧化碳排放量，其中约一半将通过提高水泥厂的资源效率来实现。每年，英国水泥行业消耗约1250万吨天然原材料，这些原材料有可能被钢铁行业生产的副产品所取代。这些材料含有制造水泥所必需的关键元素，但它们也含有异常高的铁。FeRICH旨在通过对钢铁工业中富含铁的废料进行增值和升级回收，以取代波特兰水泥生产中使用的天然原材料。这导致胶结物含有前所未有的[钙]铁氧体；然而，我们对铁氧体化学的了解仍然不完整，我们需要确定在水泥生产过程中和使用后这一阶段发生了什么。这些侧流还构成了可能改变水泥化学性质的其他次要元素。因此，我们需要了解铁素体化学中微量元素作用之间的相互依赖性，是什么控制了铁素体与水单独或与水泥中其他相混合的反应，重要的是，富含铁素体的水泥的长期耐久性。除此之外，我们还需要开发建模工具，以便能够预测这些因素之间的关系——FeRICH在这里依赖于热力学作为一种强大的技术。我们也认识到，富含铁氧体的水泥是铁磁性的，这种特性可以为水泥（或随后的混凝土）增加功能特性，这些特性可以在材料的整个生命周期中得到利用：从制造到使用寿命和寿命结束。FeRICH将开发和验证富铁氧体硅酸盐水泥的生产数据。从窑内高温反应到环境温度下与水反应，我们将建立最佳的水泥生产条件和材料组成，以实现窑内最大的工艺、能源和资源效率以及水泥与水反应后的性能。我们还将首次研究与水泥相关的铁氧体的电磁特性，为未来基础设施中构建智能系统奠定基础。在这个项目中开发的研究结果和数据将被吸收为加速吸收水泥生产中富含铁的废物的工具。FeRICH将通过实施循环经济战略，减轻水泥行业的环境负担，推动钢铁行业走向零浪费。这将有助于缓解英国钢铁业目前的危机，英国钢铁业在全球市场上的竞争力受到高于其他国家的间接成本的抑制。研究结果将允许在英国和世界范围内使用其他富含铁的材料来制造水泥。

The cement and steel sectors are foundational to the UK, are the largest manufacturing industries (by mass), and are essential to construct our infrastructure. Cement manufacture is intensive in resources, carbon, and energy, and needs radical transformation to achieve sustainability. The steel industry produces up to 1M tonnes of steel making by-products annually, and into the foreseeable future. These waste materials need to be managed properly to improve resource efficiency, and to avoid landfill and subsequent ecotoxicity. Although effective utilisation of steel slags is ~80%, a large portion is unutilised. Moreover, the majority of slag utilisation is for low-value products, e.g. aggregate, but their chemistry and mineralogy are variable, making their effects on material properties unpredictable, in the absence of further processing. Additionally, more than 190 Mt of legacy iron and steel slag are present across the country.The UK's cement industry is set to cut 4.2 MtCO2 emissions per year by 2050, about half of which is to be gained by resource efficiency in cement plants. Every year, the UK cement sector consumes ~12.5 Mt of natural raw materials, which can potentially be substituted with by-products that the steel sector produces. These materials contain the key elements that are essential to cement making, but they also have an unusually high amount of iron. FeRICH aims to replace the natural raw materials used in Portland cement making by valorising and upcycling iron-rich waste materials from the steel industry. This leads to cements containing an unprecedented level of [calcium] ferrites; however, our understanding of ferrite chemistry is still incomplete, and we need to establish what happens to this phase both during cement production and after use.These side streams also constitute other minor elements that are likely to alter the cement chemistry. Therefore, we need to develop the knowledge underpinning the interdependency between the role of minor elements in ferrite chemistry, what controls the reaction of ferrite with water over time alone or in mixture with other phases occurring in cement, and importantly, the long-term durability of ferrite-rich cement. Along with this, we also need to develop modelling tools to be able to predict the relationship between these factors - FeRICH relies on thermodynamics as a powerful technique here. We also recognise that ferrite-rich cements are ferromagnetic, and this property can add functional properties to cement (or subsequently to concrete) which may be exploited throughout the materials lifetime: form manufacturing to both their service life and end of life.FeRICH will develop and validate data-for-manufacturing of ferrite rich Portland cement. From reactions at high temperature in kilns to reaction with water at ambient temperatures, we will establish the best cement making conditions and materials compositions to achieve maximum process, energy and resource efficiency in kilns and cement performance upon reaction with water. For the first time, we will also examine the electromagnetic properties of ferrites related to cement, laying down the foundation for building intelligent systems in the future infrastructure. The findings and data developed in this project will be assimilated into tools that will accelerate the uptake of iron rich wastes in cement making. FeRICH will reduce the environmental burden of the cement industry and drive the steel industry towards zero-waste through implementation of the circular economy strategy. This will help alleviate the current crisis in the UK steel industry whose competitiveness in the global market is inhibited by a higher overhead costs than other countries. The results will allow for the use of other iron-rich materials for cement making, in the UK and worldwide.