Preparation of high toughness materials by recycling industrial waste: Performance evolution study and sustainability evaluation

Energy shortage and environmental pollution have become two global problems to be solved urgently. The establishment of the two goals of “carbon peaking” and “carbon neutrality” further makes it clear that the urgent task at present is to coordinate the relationship between development and environment. The main purpose of this study is to develop a green building material with high ductility and environmental friendliness by using solid waste. Eight kinds of fiber-reinforced alkali-activated composites (FRAC) were designed and prepared with blast furnace slag (BFS) and waste photovoltaic glass powder as cementitious materials, and the solution composed of water, sodium hydroxide and water glass as activator. The effects of fiber type, sand-to-binder ratio (s/b) and water-to-binder ratio (w/b) were considered. The fluidity, flexural strength, compressive strength, uniaxial tensile properties, drying shrinkage rate, mass loss rate and microstructure of FRAC were tested. The cost and environmental benefits of FRAC were evaluated using a simplified method and compared with traditional building materials. Finally, TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution) was used to comprehensively evaluate the eight FARCs developed. The results showed that FRAC has excellent properties, and the uniaxial tensile strain was up to 5.68% at 7 d. Compared with traditional building materials, FRAC showed significant environmental friendliness. TOPSIS results showed that the polyethylene (PE) fiber-based FRAC performs better overall than the polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) fiber -based FRAC.