Physicalechemical and mineralogical characterization of fine aggregates from construction and demolition waste recycling plants Fernando Rodrigues a , Maria Teresa Carvalho a , Luís Evangelista b , Jorge de Brito a, * a Department of Civil Engineering, Architecture, and Georresources, Instituto Superior Técnico, Technical University of Lisbon, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal b Department of Civil Engineering, Instituto Superior de Engenharia de Lisboa, R. Conselheiro Emídio Navarro 1, 1959-007 Lisbon, Portugal article info Article history: Received 1 October 2012 Received in revised form 15 February 2013 Accepted 16 February 2013 Available online 4 March 2013 Keywords: Construction and demolition waste Fine recycled aggregates Physicalechemical characterization Recycling plant abstract Construction and demolition waste (CDW) represents around 31% of all waste produced in the European Union. It is today acknowledged that the consumption of raw materials in the construction industry is a non-sustainable activity. It is thus necessary to reduce this consumption, and the volume of CDW dumped, by using this waste as a source of raw materials for the production of recycled aggregates. One potential use of these aggregates is their incorporation in reinforced concrete as a replacement of natural aggregates. A concrete that incorporates these aggregates and still performs well requires them to be fully characterized so that their behaviour within the concrete can be predicted. Coarse recycled ag- gregates have been studied quite thoroughly, because they are simpler to reintroduce in the market as a by-product, and so has the performance of concrete made with them. This paper describes the main results of research designed to characterize the physical and chemical properties of fine recycled ag- gregates for concrete production and their relationship with mineralogical composition and pre- processing. The constraints of the incorporation of fine aggregates in reinforced concrete are dis- cussed. It is shown that, unless a developed processing diagram is used, this application is not feasible. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In 2010 consumption of aggregates was 37,400 Mt and this will increase to 48,000 Mt until 2015 (The Freedonia Group, 2012). The extraction of natural sand from river and sea beds also has a strong environmental impact. According to Austen et al. (2009) this extraction causes changes in their beds that may lead to a loss of balance between coastal sand and sea bed sand, with dire conse- quences for the coast. In addition to these impacts, dredging sand may also modify the biological balance. This dredging would be unnecessary if stone used to make gravel were crushed to produce sand. However, this crushing would mean an increase in energy used, leading to higher emissions of CO 2 , while failing to solve the problem of depleting resources through mining. To determine whether using recycled aggregates and running construction and demolition waste (CDW) recycling plants has positive or negative technological, environmental and economic impacts various studies have been presented in the literature. Tam (2009) per- formed an extensive field survey on Japanese and Australian con- struction industries and concluded that in Australia the prevailing opinion is still that recycled aggregates are costly and have limited applications, leading the author to propose a recycling unified policy. Blengini and Garbarino (2010) studied the environmental impact of the recycling process as a whole using LCA and GIS in the northern region of Italy and found that recycled aggregates are environmentally viable and capable of performing an important role on the aggregates supply mix of the construction industry. Later, Blengini et al. (2012) defined new guidelines for the use of LCA tools for the sustainable construction and aggregates recycling, which will boost their use on construction industry. Coelho and de Brito (2012a, 2012b) studied the economic viability of Portuguese recycling plants and concluded that the return of investment can occur somewhere between 2 and 8 years, depending on the sur- rounding socio-economic conditions. In order to guarantee the sustainable development of this in- dustry the consumption of resources must be reduced and the utilization of CDW as raw materials must simultaneously be increased. CDW is presently recycled in several countries. It rep- resents around 31% of all waste produced at the moment in the European Union (Fisher and Werge, 2009). The use of coarse recycled aggregates (CRA) in concrete production is already a valid option, since research has proved that their incorporation is viable. Rahal (2007) concluded that concrete made with coarse recycled * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ351 218443659; fax: þ351 218443071. E-mail address: jbrito@civil.ist.utl.pt (J. de Brito). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro 0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2013.02.023 Journal of Cleaner Production 52 (2013) 438e445