ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mater.
Sec. Structural Materials
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmats.2025.1570367
Akermanitic clinker unlocks the potential of Mg-silicates for carbonation cured construction materials
Provisionally accepted
- 1VITO NV, Mol, Belgium
- 2KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The global CO2 storage potential of Mg-silicate minerals is renowned. The valorization of residues containing these minerals via ex situ carbonation therefore seems an obvious pathway, however, significant levels of CO2 uptake have only been obtained for a limited range of minerals (e.g., olivines), using extreme reaction conditions or strong chemicals. This paper shows that the carbonatability of Mg-silicate resources can be engineered using a clinkering process to produce akermanite (Ca2MgSi2O7 or C2MS2), by heating a raw meal of Mg-silicates with 25-45 wt% of CaCO3 to 1200-1350 °C. Akermanitic clinkers with optimized raw meal obtained 40-70 wt.% crystalline akermanite and 70-85 wt.% total akermanite (including potential nanocrystalline akermanite from the XRD amorphous part). Carbonation of pressed cylinders at 10 bar, 60 °C, 100% CO2 and > 90% RH provided 60-80 MPa compressive strength and a CO2 uptake of about 100 kg/t, revealing the new akermanitic clinker as potential binder for construction materials.
Keywords: Ferronickel slags, silicate mine tailings, Mineral Carbonation, Carbonation curing, carbonatable clinker, akermanite
Received: 03 Feb 2025; Accepted: 28 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Peys, Pires Martins, Prado Araujo and Nielsen. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Arne Peys, VITO NV, Mol, 2400, Belgium
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.