Manufacturing non-sintered ceramsite from incinerated municipal solid waste ash (IMSWA): Production and performance

The resource utilization of solid wastes has become a critical problem in resource recovery. In this study, IMSWA (Incinerated municipal solid waste ash) was washed to remove chloride and then mixed with OPC (Ordinary Portland Cement) and SS (Silica Sol) to prepare a non-sintered ceramsite. Through single factor experiments, the quality scores of water-washed IMSWA: OPC: SS is initially determined to be 6:3:1, and the curing time is 14 d. Then the uniform test design was used to optimize the ceramsite formula and the influence of different raw material ratios on the performance of the non-sintered ceramsite. Finally, use DPS (Data Processing System) optimization to determine the best raw material quality scores: 59% for IMSWA, 30% for OPC, and 11% for SS. The performance follows (1) Ceramsite's compact surface structure, ensuring high strength and low water absorption. (2) Ceramsite section forms a complex calcium aluminate hydrate gel (C-A-H) structure (3) A profit of $60.97/ton of ceramsite has good economic benefits. These findings demonstrate that preparing a non-sintered ceramsite with IMSWA is a promising artificial lightweight aggregate.