Iron ore beneficiation plant tailing (IOBT) is a common voluminous solid waste found at iron ore mining and mineral beneficiation sites. It is found commonly in granulated form with suitable grading. With appropriate test procedure conforming to relevant standard code, the waste is found to be suitable for replacing river sand, a natural resource as fine aggregate in concrete work. Slump and compaction factor values remain within the medium range so that it may be used general purpose concrete work. Strength values like compressive strength, split tensile strength and flexural strength values by and large meet the requirement at all replacement level. However the optimum values for both fresh and hardened properties of concrete are found to be at 50% replacement of the sand with the IOBT. X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) assessment of waste IOBT identify the key iron bearing mineral phases like hematite and goethite which may likely influence strength values. Rough surfaces along with voids found in Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) image in IOBT may influence the variation trends in slump and strength values. Sustainable usage with circularity issues of this mining waste are considered with its three basic segments. Certain Sustainability Development Goals (SDG) like SDG1, SDG2, SDG3, SDG8 and SDG12 are found to be partially satisfied considering these from local point of view.
Pujary et al. (Mon,) studied this question.