Construction and Building Materials xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Properties of mortar produced with recycled clay brick aggregate

and PET
Zhi Ge, Hongya Yue, Renjuan Sun ⇑
Department of Transportation Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China

h i g h l i g h t s

 The recycled PET and clay brick aggregate were used to make PET mortar.
 The PET mortar had high early age strength and low water absorption.
 The specimen had high resistance to chloride ion penetration and sulfate attack.
 Specimen had uniform structure without micro-cracks in the interfacial area.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper studied the fabrication and properties, including strength, water absorption, resistance to sul-
Received 30 December 2014 fate attack and chloride ion penetration, and micro-structure of a new type of mortar made with recycled
Received in revised form 13 April 2015 clay brick (CB) and post-consumer polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The effects of binder to CB aggregate
Accepted 2 May 2015
ratio and curing condition on strength were investigated. The results indicate that binder to CB aggregate
Available online xxxx
ratio had a significant influence on strength. The optimum value was 1:2. For curing condition, specimen
cured at 180 °C for 2 h had higher strength. The specimen with proper mix proportion and curing could
Keywords:
reach 42.5 MPa and 12.6 MPa for compressive and flexural strength, respectively. Also, the 4-h compres-
PET
Recycled clay brick
sive strength was 85.4% of 28-day strength. The PET mortar had low water absorption of 0.87% and high
Mechanical property resistance to sulfate attack and chloride ion penetration. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) test
SEM showed that PET mortar had uniform micro-structure with very low porosity. The CB aggregate was well
Durability covered by PET. There were no micro-cracks found in the aggregate-paste interfacial area.
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
As the building demolition increased continuously, construction
waste becomes a major pollutant. In China, around 7000 million
tons construction waste was produced annually. Due to Chinese
traditional building habits, significant portion of the demolition
waste is clay bricks (CB) [1,2]. Traditionally, waste CB is majorly
land filled. This method has disadvantages of occupying limited
space, especially in large city, and raising environmental issues.
Therefore, recycling the waste CB effectively becomes one of the
important concerns for environment. Research show that waste
CB could be reused to partially replace aggregate in cement
concrete [3–7]. Concrete with recycled waste CB aggregate had
advantages of lightweight and high temperature resistance.
However, the water absorption of these concrete was much higher
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 0531 88392842.
E-mail address: sunrenjuan@sdu.edu.cn (R. Sun).
due to CB’ high porosity, which could lead to durability problems.
Combining CB with a waterproof cementing material could be a
potential way to solve this issue.
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is one of the most important
and common waterproof materials with high performance to price
ratio and excellent properties, such as high durability, good
mechanical and electrical properties, and low production cost.
Therefore, it is widely used in packaging, fibers, and other areas
[8–11]. The annual production of PET exceeds 6.7 million tons
worldwide, especially in Asian because of the increasing demands
in China and India [12]. The environmental issue caused by PET
pollution is becoming more and more serious [11]. Compared with
burning and backfilling, recycling PET as building materials is a
more economical and environment-friendly way which attracts
more attention. Currently, there are three major ways to recycling
waste PET. The first method is that wasted PET is shredded to par-
ticles and used as a substitute for aggregate to produce concrete.
Results show that concrete with PET had low water absorption

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2015.05.081
0950-0618/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Ge Z et al. Properties of mortar produced with recycled clay brick aggregate and PET. Constr Build Mater (2015), http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2015.05.081
2 Z. Ge et al. / Construction and Building Materials xxx (2015) xxx–xxx

and lightweight [13–15]. This method is the greenest way to reuse Table 2
waste PET as construction materials. However, increasing PET Grading of recycled clay brick fine aggregate.

aggregate content could decrease the compressive and flexural Particle size (mm) 9.5 4.75 2.36 1.18 0.6 0.3 0.15 0.075
strength gradually [14,15]. The second way is using recycled PET Accumulated percentage 100 97 80 59 36 13 5 2
fiber in concrete to enhance its ductility, thus reducing the crack- passing (%)
ing due to plastic shrinkage [16–19]. But this method only recycles
a small quantity of waste PET. The third method is to make poly-
mer mortar or concrete using the unsaturated polyester resin made
Table 3
from depolymerized PET [20–23]. However, the cost of this method
Properties of waste PET.
is very high. Properties of polymer mortar or concrete are very sen-
sitive to temperature. Recently, waste PET has been used as binder Properties Value
to produce plastic soil, mortar, or concrete. Testing results show Density 1.35 g/cm3
that this is an effective way to reuse waste PET [24–27]. Melting point 260 °C
Water absorption 0.16%
In this research, the waste PET and CB aggregate were combined
to produce recycle PET mortar. The purpose of using waste PET
instead of cement as binder is that PET could prevent water from The compressive and flexural strength were measured based on ASTM C 109
[28] and ASTM C 348 [29]. The 50  50  50 mm and 40  40  160 mm specimens
penetrating into the CB aggregate and, therefore, resolve the dura-
were tested for compressive and flexural strength, respectively. Three specimens
bility issues caused by high permeability. The properties of this were tested at each age. The average of these values is presented and discussed
new PET mortar, including strength, water absorption, resistances in this paper. The density of recycled PET mortar were measured based on ASTM
to sulfate attack and chloride ion penetration, and micro-structure, C 642 [30].
For water absorption testing, the dry mass of specimens in air, A, was first
were studied.
obtained after dried in the oven over 24 h at 105 °C and cooled down to the room
temperature. After that, specimens were immersed into the water. The
2. Experimental materials and design surface-dry mass, B, was then measured. The absorption was calculated as
(B A)/A  100%.
2.1. Experimental materials The resistance to sulfate attack of PET mortar was tested using drying and wet-
ting method. For each cycle, specimens were first soaked in the 5% sodium sulfate
The waste CB was employed to produce recycled fine aggregate. The properties solution for 16 h, dried in the air for 1 h, and then dried in the vacuumed oven at
of waste CB are shown in Table 1. To produce the fine aggregate with desired 40 °C for 6 h. After that, specimens were cooled down to the room temperature.
grading, the brick was crushed, sieved to different sizes and then recombined. The weight and compressive strength were then tested. The chloride penetration
The grading is shown in Table 2. The fineness modulus of recycled CB fine aggregate resistance was tested based on ASTM C1202 [31].
was 3.08. Recycled PET particles from a waste plastic recycling factory in Jinan were Scanning electron microscope (SEM), SU-70 SEM, manufactured by Japan, was
used. Main physical and mechanical properties of PET were tabulated in Table 3. In used to examine the microstructure of recycled PET mortar. Before testing, a gold
this research, Type F fly ash containing 3.88% CaO was also added to improve work- casting was applied to the surface of specimens.
ability and strength.

3. Results and discussion

2.2. Experimental design

The effects of binder, including PET and fly ash, to CB aggregate ratio (by 3.1. Physical properties
weight), curing condition, and amount of fly ash on the strength were investigated.
Three different binder to CB aggregate ratios, 1:1, 1:2 and 1:3, were designed. The Fig. 1 is the infrared Spectrum of waste PET particles. The spec-
fly ash was used to partially replace PET. Three different replacement levels of 5%,
trum illustrates that the material contained carbonyl C@O
10% and 15% (by weight) were employed. The effect of four different curing temper-
atures, 100 °C, 120 °C, 180 °C and room temperature, was studied. Based on the (1717.52 cm 1) stretching, aromatic skeletal stretching (1410.60
strength results, the proper mix proportion and curing method was selected. The cm 1), C(O)AO stretching of the ester group (1262.0 cm 1). The
resistances of the selected mix to sulfate attack and chloride ion penetration were 873.35 and 725.64 cm 1 are assigned to the coupled vibrations of
investigated. the aromatic out-of-plane CAH bending mode and the
out-of-plane O@CAO bending mode, respectively. The result clearly
2.3. Specimen preparation demonstrates that the waste material is PET.
Fig. 2 illustrates the water absorption with time. After immersed
To produce the PET mortar, the recycled CB aggregate was first dried in the oven
in the water for 7 days, the water absorption was only 0.87%. Also,
to remove any absorbed water. After that, PET, fly ash and recycled CB aggregate
were weighed according to the mix proportion, and hand mixed uniformly. The more than 75% water was absorbed in the first 30 min. The weight
mixture was then heated in the oven at 280 °C for about 2 h until PET was melted
completely. After that, the mixture was mixed again, put into molds quickly, and
finally compacted to make specimens of recycled PET mortar. The molding process
has to be completed before the hardening of PET.

2.4. Testing methods

Infrared Spectrum test was performed to determine the main functional groups
and the degree of crystallinity of PET. The VERTEX-70 FTIR spectrometers (BRUKER
OPTICS) with scanned absorption bands from 400 cm 1 to 4000 cm 1 was
employed.

Table 1
Properties of waste clay brick.

Properties Value
Density 1.8 g/cm3
Compressive strength 20 MPa
Water absorption 20%
Fig. 1. Infrared Spectrum of PET.

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1 5.5  10 6m/(m k), respectively, higher tensile stress could be

0.9 developed during the cooling process due to high PET content
0.8 and induced micro-cracks, which in turn reduced the strength. As
Water absorption(%)

0.7 shown in Fig. 4, large air bubbles could be trapped during the mix-
ing due to the high viscosity of PET. The large voids will further
0.6
reduce the strength. For specimen with ratio of 1:1, the compres-
0.5
sive and flexural strengths were 30.4 MPa and 11.35 MPa, respec-
0.4
tively. When the mass ratio was 1:3, the melted mixture had
0.3 very poor workability, which caused large porosity of the specimen
0.2 (Fig. 4). The compressive and flexural strengths were only 7.3 MPa
0.1 and 2.06 MPa, respectively. Based on the strength, the binder to
0 fine aggregate ratio of 1:2 was selected for the following tests.
0 24 48 72 96 120 144 168 192 Fig. 5 indicates fly ash content had significant effect on the
Time(h) strength of the PET mortar. As the percentage of fly ash increased
from 0% to 10%, the compressive strength increased 16%.
Fig. 2. Water absorption of the PET mortar.
However, when the fly ash changed from 10% to 15%, the compres-
sive and flexural strengths were reduced. The increased strength is
of absorbed water became stable in about 2 days. The water absorp- potentially caused by improved workability and crystalline degree.
tion of the recycle PET-clay brick mortar was much lower than that Previous research shows that adding fly ash to PET composite
of the recycled clay brick mortar or concrete. Although the clay brick could produce a more homogeneous melting mixture [27]. Also,
has high porosity, melted PET could form a waterproof layer around fly ash particles in the melted mixture could serve as miniature
the clay brick aggregate, resulting in low water absorption. The ball bearings due to its spherical shape, thus increasing the fluidity.
apparent density of the PET mortar was only 1.84 g/cm3, which A more uniform mixture will be produced due to the improved
was lower than that of normal mortar or concrete. workability, resulting in higher strength. Besides improving work-
ability, fly ash could also increase the crystalline degree [32]. When
the content of fly ash further increased from 10% to 15%, the con-
3.2. Compressive and flexural strengths tent of PET was reduced resulting in lower strength. Therefore, in
the following study, 10% of fly ash was selected.
Fig. 3 shows the effect of binder to CB aggregate ratio on the
compressive and flexural strength. As the ratio changed from 1:1
to 1:3, both compressive strength and flexural strength had first 3.3. Effect of curing condition
increased and then decreased. Specimen with ratio of 1:2 had the
highest compressive and flexural strength of 42.5 MPa and As shown in Fig. 6, the strength of PET mortar was also signifi-
12.6 MPa, respectively. The lower strength of specimen with ratio cantly influenced by the curing temperature. The higher the curing
of 1:1 could be caused by the internal cracking and large air voids. temperature, the higher the compressive strength was. When cured
Since the coefficients of linear thermal expansion of PET and clay at 180 °C, specimen obtained the maximum compressive strength of
brick aggregate are around 59.4  10 6m/(m k) and 42.5 MPa, which was 35% higher than that of specimen cured at

Fig. 3. Effect of binder to CB aggregate ratio on the compressive and flexural strength.

1:1 1:2 1:3

Fig. 4. Specimens with different binder to CB aggregate ratio.

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room temperature. There are two possible reasons for this phe- soaking in the sodium sulfate solution. Different from the mass
nomenon. First, as specimen cured in the room condition, the surface change, the compressive strength decreased from 43.6 MPa to
temperature would decrease quickly from melting temperature. 36.4 MPa and 36.9 MPa under sulfate attack and water after 10
However, the inner temperature changed much slower due to the cycles, respectively (Fig. 10). After 20 cycles, the compressive
low heat conductivity of PET. The temperature gradient could cause strength was 33.8 MPa and 34.6 MPa. Based on the mass and
large thermal stress and induce cracks inside specimen. Second, strength, the PET mortar had high resistance to sulfate attack. For
more crystal was produced under high curing temperature, which
in turn increased hardness of PET. Fig. 7 shows the Infrared
Spectrum of PET under different curing conditions. The band at
898 cm 1 is related to the amorphous content of PET. Based on the
assumption that the amorphous and crystalline materials alone
comprise the total sample, the amount of crystal can be inferred
from the amorphous content [33]. The transmittance at 898 cm 1
increased as temperature increased, indicating higher percent of
crystal was formed under higher curing temperature.
Fig. 8 was the compressive strength development with time.
Different from normal cement mortar, PET mortar had high early
strength, which reached 36.9 MPa in only 4 h. It was 85.4% of
28-day strength. After 8 h, the strength became stable. Therefore,
the PET mortar could be used as repair material for pavement fast
track maintenance.

3.4. Durability and microstructure

Fig. 6. Effect of curing temperature on the compressive strength.
Fig. 9 shows the mass change of specimens after wetting and
drying recycles. The weight of specimen even increased after

Fig. 7. Infrared Spectrum of specimens cured under different temperatures.

Fig. 5. Effect of fly ash content on the compressive and flexural strength. Fig. 8. Compressive strength development.

Please cite this article in press as: Ge Z et al. Properties of mortar produced with recycled clay brick aggregate and PET. Constr Build Mater (2015), http://
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 Z. Ge et al. / Construction and Building Materials xxx (2015) xxx–xxx 5

the chloride ion penetrability test, the measured Coulomb charge

value was only 43.2 C, indicating negligible chloride ion penetra-
bility. The high durability could be caused by the low water
absorption. The sodium sulfate or chloride ions were hard to pen-
etrate into the specimen. Therefore, this PET mortar is suitable for
using in aggressive environments or as protection material for steel
rebar.
Fig. 11 shows the microstructure of the PET mortar. The mortar
was uniform with very low porosity. The recycled clay brick pow-
der had air voids inside, which is why the clay brick had high water
absorption. However, the clay brick aggregate was well covered by
PET. There were no micro-cracks found in the interfacial area. This
uniform and dense structure could be one of the reasons for the
low water absorption and high durability.
As shown above, the developed PET mortar has rapid strength
development and high durability. Therefore, it could be used as fast
repair material for sealing and patching of both asphalt and con-
Fig. 9. Mass change of specimen under wetting and drying cycles. crete pavement. Also, the PET mortar may be used in corrosive
environmental or as the protection material for steel reinforcement
due to its low absorption and high durability. In addition to these,
50 the PET mortar could be used to prefabricate brick or barrier.
Sulphate solution
45
Water
Compressive strength(MPa)

4. Conclusions
40
35 This paper used the recycled PET and clay brick to produce PET
30 mortar and investigated the major properties of the PET mortar.
25 The major conclusions are listed as following:
20
1. With proper mixing proportion and curing, the compressive and
15
flexural strength of the PET mortar could reach 42.5 MPa and
10 12.6 MPa, respectively. The strength development was very fast.
5 Over 85.4% of 28-day compressive strength could be achieved
0 within only 4 h. In order to obtain higher strength, the speci-
0 10 20 mens should be cured at 180 °C.
Cycle numbers 2. The binder to CB aggregate ratio and fly ash content had signif-
icant effect on strength. The optimum binder to CB aggregate
Fig. 10. Compressive strength change under wetting and drying cycles.
ratio and fly content were 1:2 and 10%, respectively.

PET
Paste

Clay brick
Aggregate

PET
Paste
Interfacial
Area
Clay Brick
Aggregate

Fig. 11. Microstructure of the PET mortar.

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6 Z. Ge et al. / Construction and Building Materials xxx (2015) xxx–xxx
3. The PET mortar had low water absorption of 0.87% and high
resistance to chloride ion penetration and sulfate attack. The
Coulomb charge value was only 43.2 C. After wetting and drying
recycles, the mass did not change. The strength of specimens
immersed in sodium sulfate solution and water were similar.
4. The SEM results show that the PET mortar had uniform and
dense structure with low porosity. Clay brick aggregate and
PET were bonded well. No micro-cracks found in the interfacial
area.
Acknowledgments
Authors would like to thank the National Natural Science
Foundation of China (51108247 and 51478252) and Scientific
Research Foundation for Returned Overseas Chinese Scholars
(20131792) for the financial support. Gratitude is also given to
the material laboratory at Shandong University for the great help.
Authors would also thank Yizhang Hu for helping the testing.
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