Abstract:
This investigation was aimed at to study the possibility of using spentcatalyst, from Thai Oil refinery, as a construction material. The unground spentcatalyst was used as sand in mortar mixture. The quantities of the unground spentcatalyst in the mixture were varied with the proportion of 1.25, 2.0, 2.75, and 3.5times of Portland cement by weight. The cement and unground spent catalyst weremixed with water to get the flow of 65+5 which was a suitable consistency of to beeasily placed in the mold. Fly ash was also used as cementitious material and 20percent of cement was replaced by fly ash. Besides the spent catalyst was used assand, it was also ground to a very small particle size as same as cement and used ascementitious material like fly ash. The cement-ground spent catalyst was mixed withwater to form the standard mortar cube of 5-cm. Compressive strength of mortar wasdetermined at the ages of 1, 3, 7, 14, 28, and 60 days. Leaching characteristics oflead, chromium and cadmium of unground spent catalyst, ground spent catalyst, andmortar containing spent catalyst were tested at the ages of 1,7, and 14 days.The results from this investigation showed that the compressive strength ofmortar containing unground spent catalyst increased with ages. When increased thequantities of the unground spent catalyst, the compressive strength of mortar wasdecreased. At the proportions of the unground spent catalyst of 1.25, 2.0, 2.75, and3.5 the compressive strengths of mortar were 160, 59,26, and 12 ksc, respectively, atthe curing age of 28 days, while the compressive strength of standard mortar was 247ksc. When fly ash was used with the unground spent catalyst, the compressivestrengths of mortar were little lower than those of the mortar containing only theunground spent catalyst at the same mix proportion. The results also indicated thatthe compressive strength of mortar containing spent catalyst at the proportion of 1.25was strong enough to be used to make a concrete brick. In the case of the groundspent catalyst being used to replace cement, it made the compressive strength ofmortar lower than the standard mortar about 20 percent. Therefore, the ground spentcatalyst is not a good pozzolan, and its uses as cementitious material should becarefully considered. The leachate results of spent catalyst without cement-fly ashfixation showed that the lead and chromium concentrations were not exceeded thelimited allowed by the Thai Ministry of Industry, but the leachate of cadmium andnickel were higher than the allowance. After fixed the spent catalyst with cement orcement-fly ash, the heavy metals in leachate were not exceeded the industrial effluentstandard, therefore the heavy metals mentioned earlier were not a serious problem inusing spent catalyst as a concrete material.