Silicon DOI 10.1007/s12633-015-9386-4 ORIGINAL PAPER Mechanical Properties of Artificial Stones Produced from Sludge of Stone-Cutting Factories (SSCF): The Effects of Nano-fillers (a TiO 2 and ZnO Nanoparticles) Nasim Sarami 1 · Leila Mahdavian 1 Received: 10 February 2015 / Accepted: 26 November 2015 © Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016 Abstract The aim of this study is to present the advantages of artificial stone production from the sludge of stone cut- ting factories (SSCFs), which is a self-cleaning and low-cost process, in Lorestan province, Iran. The basic formulation of artificial stone is the sludge stone: 50 % of the weight (wt.%) of sludge stone is cement. 12 wt.%, 25 wt.%, and 7 wt.% of the cement consists of unsaturated polyester resin liquid (UPR), water, and, filler respectively. The filler itself is made up of micro-silica and different amounts of anatase TiO 2 -NP and ZnO-NP. Nanoparticles lead to hydrophobic- ity, the analysis of oil stains, the elimination of bad odor, the sterilization and self-cleaning of artificial stone. The production of artificial stone via this method is pressure- resistant, highly flexible, resistant to freezing and scrapes, lightweight, capable of being cut and formed with a low thickness, and self-cleaning compared to the natural stone. Keywords Sludge of stone cutting factories (SSCFs) · Artificial stone · Micro-silica · aTiO 2 -NPs · ZnO-NPs · Unsaturated polyester resin liquid (UPR) · Cement 1 Introduction Currently, due to such factors as the poor quality of nat- ural stones, short-term adhesive materials in the facade of  Leila Mahdavian mahdavian leila@yahoo.com; Mahdavian@iau-doroud.ac.ir 1 Department of Chemistry, Doroud Branch, Islamic Azad University, P.O. Box: 133, Doroud, Iran buildings, high moisture absorption, low resistance, few mining resources, and environmental issues, consumers are looking for stones with superior strength and quality and cheaper prices [1–3]. This tendency can be accounted for by other reasons like the lack of diversity in design and color, the penetration of contamination into the stone tissues, and stone opacity in the long term [4]. Artificial stones with a good quality and reasonable price can be an appropriate substitute for natural stones. The price of artificial stones is low due to benefiting from useless stones and low costs of excavation and transportation [5]. Travertine and marble reserves in Iran are around 450 and 44 million tons, respectively. In Lorestan province, Iran most mines are travertine [4]. Thus, more than 40 % of the ore mined is wasted and dumped around the cities (Fig. 1). Chemical analyses of travertine wastes are as follows for the production of the synthetic artificial stones: CaO, SiO 2 , FeS 2 , MgO, Na 2 O, loss on ignition (LOI), clay (K 2 O, Al 2 O 3 , and Fe 2 O 3 ), sulfate, and organic materials [6]. Waste travertine has the following properties: accept- able resistance, low hardness, ability to be polished and cut, high strength and formability, having crystals, high density, beauty, porosity for full adherence to grout, ease of access, impossibility of altering its reserves, variety of colors, and reasonable price compared to that of natural stone [7–9]. Due to the porosity of the stone, having a lot of waste is inevitable when cutting and polishing, which is an environ- mental problem for this region. The aim of this study is to reuse the sludge of stone cutting factories and produce arti- ficial stones which are highly resistant, self-cleaning, dust escaping, and hydrophobic. For this purpose, the addition of inorganic nanoparticles and some other organic materi- als are employed [10–12]. Nanoparticles of titanium dioxide and zinc oxide are combined in artificial stone made from