Utilização do lodo das estações de tratamento de água na composição de tijolos solo-cimento

Abstract

Water treatment plants exist to turn raw freshwater into potable water for human, animal and industrial consumption. A great amount of sludge is produced by the water treatment process as an excess residue which is often discarded at landfills or even illegally rejected in rivers. Those discard alternatives have shown to be unsustainable and might result in environmental, economic and social jeopardy. New alternatives are being developed aiming to give a better destination to the sludge such as incorporating it to the composition of soil-cement bricks. Soil, cement, and water are the raw materials that compound soil-cement bricks, and its use has proved to be economically beneficial for civil construction. Nonetheless, sludge is a residue discarded in its entirety to the environment, even though it could be better explored if it were used in soil-cement bricks’ production. Thus, this research aims to present a bibliographical review on the use of water treatment plant (WTP) sludge in the composition of soil-cement brick’s. For this, three case studies were analyzed, having their methodologies, materials, results, and conclusions described. All three studies indicate that the incorporation of WTP sludge to soil-cement bricks is possible, however different sludge compositions directly interfere in the mechanical and technological properties of the bricks. Thus, each sludge composition requires a new study and test, once it directly affects the properties of the soil-cement bricks.