Abstract
This work aims at maximum exploitation of petroleum waste sludge as additive to portland cement to prepare blended cements and hence increasing its production capacity without further firing. This will decrease the main cement industry problems involving environmental pollution such as releasing gases and high-energy consumption during industry and hence maximizes the production economics. Six batches of ordinary portland cement (OPC) mixed with different proportions of petroleum waste sludge (PWS) donated as C1 (control batch contains no PWS), C2 (contains 90 wt.% of OPC+10 wt.% of PWS), C3 (contains 80 wt.% of OPC+20 wt.% of PWS), C4 (contains 70 wt.% of OPC+30 wt.% of PWS), C4 (contains 60 wt.% of OPC+40 wt.% of PWS) and C6 (contains 50 wt.% of OPC+50 wt.% of PWS), were prepared and mixed individually with the suitable amount of mixing water. Cement mixes C2, C3 and C4 showed improved cementing and physicomechanical properties compared with pure cement (C1) with special concern of mix C4. Such improvement is due to the relatively higher surface area as well as the high content of kaolinite and quartz in the added PWS (high pozzalanity) favoring the hydration process evidenced by the increase in the cement hydration product (portlandite mineral (Ca (OH)(2)).