Evaluation on physical and chemical properties of treated industrial wastewater sludge containing latex and heavy metals using ordinary Portland cement via stabilization / solidification technique

Industrial wastewater sludge containing latex collected from rubber industry wastewater treatment plant has classified the waste as scheduled waste due to high concentration of selected heavy metals within it. Laboratory scale of special treatment via solidification/stabilization (S/S) technique has been performed to the waste by using ordinary Portland cement. The objective of this research is to evaluate the chemical properties of the raw waste using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and physical properties related to unconfined compressive strength (UCS) performance of stabilised/solidified (s/s) cube specimens. Other factors took into consideration include the curing condition using air and water immersion curing technique, waste addition percentage, specimen age and density. The fresh mix prepared were cast in plastic moulds internal dimension of 50 mm3 producing cubical shape specimens and cured approximately 24 to 48 hours. The prepared specimen batches are A1 (90% OPC + 10% waste), A2 (70% OPC + 30% waste), A3 (50% OPC + 50% waste). Chemical analyses using XRF indicates that raw sludge contains approximately several heavy metals such as Aluminium (30%), Phosphorus, P (17.5%) and Zinc, Zn (11.7%). UCS testing were conducted on 7 and 28 days of specimen age. Positive average compressive strength results of 7 day air cured specimens reach 5.25 MPa, 5.28 MPa, and 2.16 MPa for A1, A2 and A3. Next, 28 days air cured specimens results are 9.59 MPa, 8.01 MPa, and 1.46 MPa for A1, A2, and A3 respectively. As for water immersion, the compressive strengths are 8.19 MPa, 4.93 MPa, and 1.90 MPa for 7 days, and 7.75 MPa, 10.10 MPa, and 2.11 MPa for 28 days at respective A1, A2 and A3 sequence. Based on the UCS performance, the tested specimens surpassed the minimum requirement for secured landfill disposal which is at 1 MPa.