After more than 30 years of industrial development and functional technology transformation and upgrading, China has now formed ten stone industry clusters in large and small numbers, initially built a modern stone industry system, and become the largest stone processing and trade center in Asia and even the world. At present, the annual production of various stone products in China has far exceeded 1 billion square meters, and the annual output value has exceeded 500 billion yuan.
However, the processing of stone materials also produces a large number of waste materials, such as leftovers, debris, and slurry residue. If these waste materials are simply landfilled, they will not only occupy a large number of land resources but also seriously damage the ecological environment and the balance of the biological chain near the landfill, causing a profound impact on the local area that is difficult to repair.
Through various comprehensive utilization projects, they can be returned to our lives and used by us.
01 Used as a mosaic material
Mosaic is a very ancient decorative technique. Its principle is to cut and paste stones with different textures and colors to form a unique artistic pattern. Through parquet, you can achieve the integration of floor tiles. Compared with a single decorative effect, the plane level will be full.
With the progress of modern design and production technology, this technology is on the ascendant. At present, in many domestic hotels, restaurants, shopping malls, airports, and other fields of engineering projects, the industry tends to use parquet to enrich the decorative effect. This makes the amount and variety of stone parquet more and more, and the pattern more and more complex.
The leftover materials produced in the process of stone processing are a good source of materials for stone parqueting, which can be used for marble, granite, or various artificial stones. The leftover materials of stone corners after processing can be used in the seamless processing process, seam processing process, water jet machine, and manual patchwork, which can not only make full use of waste resources to achieve the ecological and economic effects of environmental protection and conservation, but also make the entire environment full of warm vitality through the aesthetic feeling of the stone and the beautiful patterns.
02 Used for indoor and outdoor stacking and veneer
At the beginning of the 20th century, due to the use of steel structures, the application of stone as a weighing material became less and less, and stone gradually became the surface decoration material of buildings. After the 1940s, steel structures were replaced by concrete buildings, resulting in a continuous decrease in the thickness of stone used for decorative surfaces. As a result, stone veneer has become a more popular way of using stone in today’s buildings.
Stone veneer, as the name implies, refers to a wall practice that uses the pasting process or hooks construction to inlay the stone to the wall column surface to achieve the role of decoration and protection of the wall. In fact, not only large stone slabs can be used for veneer, but also small leftover materials produced during stone processing have their own magical effects.
In the interior decoration, the leftover materials of stone corners can be cut into small-sized face bricks of different shapes, which can be used for the facing of corridors, balconies, toilets, and other small occasions. It is durable, clean, neat, and beautiful. In outdoor decoration, the surplus stone corner materials can also be processed according to the actual user needs, inlaid on the pavement, wall, sidewalk, and other places, or used after color blending and splicing into a variety of vivid patterns, making the outdoor scene more interesting.
In addition to veneer, the direct use of stone around the main building for stacking can often achieve unexpectedly good results.
03 Make decorative paint
Stone-like paint is a kind of paint with decorative effects similar to marble and granite. It is mainly prepared with synthetic resin lotion as the base material, natural colored sand with different particle sizes, composite rock flakes, and a small number of mica flakes as the aggregate, additives, and water. It has the texture of natural stone and can be used for cement brick walls, foam, gypsum, aluminum plates, glass, and other substrates. It has excellent pollution resistance and a service life of up to 15 years. More importantly, it will not increase the load pressure of the building and has no risk of falling off.
With the introduction of the national energy conservation standard for new residential buildings and the massive implementation of external thermal insulation of building walls, the safety and thermal insulation of the original dry hanging construction of natural granite stone are increasingly challenged, while real stone paint is a more suitable material. Compared with natural stone, real stone paint is more constructive, while greatly shortening the construction period and greatly reducing the project cost, Let architectural designers in the pursuit of nature at the same time can reflect an unexpected natural granite stone effect.
04 Used as concrete admixture
Many practical studies have shown that the use of waste rock powder such as granite powder with a content of less than 10% instead of cement as the concrete admixture will help to increase the concrete slurry content, not only improve the expansion and slump of the concrete mixture but also reduce the bleeding rate, thus improving the concrete performance and meeting the concrete performance requirements. At the same time, it also reduces the production cost of concrete, reduces environmental pollution, promotes the development of a circular economy, and improves the efficiency of resource utilization.
05 Autoclaved aerated concrete block
Autoclaved aerated concrete block is a new type of building material that is light and porous and has the characteristics of lightweight, high strength, heat preservation, heat insulation, sound absorption, fire prevention, sawing, planing, and processing. Its general mass is 500-700kg/m3, which is only 1/4-1/3 of clay bricks and lime sand bricks, and 1/5 of ordinary concrete. It is a lighter type of concrete and is suitable for infill walls of high-rise buildings and load-bearing walls of low-rise buildings.
Using this material, the deadweight of the whole building can be reduced by more than 40% compared with that of ordinary brick concrete structure buildings. Since the deadweight of the building is reduced and the seismic damage is small, the seismic capacity of the building is greatly improved. Lime, fly ash, slag, gypsum, cement, sand, air-entraining agent, bubble stabilizer, and the regulator can be used as the main raw materials to produce autoclaved aerated concrete blocks.
06 Making autoclaved lime sand bricks
Autoclaved lime sand bricks are made of sand and lime as the main raw materials, allowed to be mixed with pigments and admixtures, prepared by blanks, pressed into shape, and cured by high-pressure steam. It is a new building material with mature technology, excellent performance, and energy conservation, and is suitable for the load-bearing wall of multi-story mixed structure buildings.
Industry tests show that autoclaved lime sand bricks with a strength grade above 15 can be prepared by using granite powder waste from stone factories as long as appropriate technical measures are taken.
It is undoubtedly an economic and effective way to solve the environmental pollution of the stone industry by using these powder wastes to prepare autoclaved lime sand bricks. It not only has good economic benefits, but also has far-reaching social significance in energy conservation, environmental protection, and resource recycling.
07 Made into terrazzo
Terrazzo is a kind of product that is ground and polished on the surface after mixing gravel, glass, quartz stone, and other aggregates into the binder to make concrete products. Traditional terrazzo generally uses cement as the adhesive, so the surface is rough, easy to be weathered and eroded, and the color expression is limited. In recent years, since people began to use epoxy resin to replace cement, a series of defects of terrazzo have been perfectly solved. The material is more delicate, and it has become smooth and bright. The color also shows a beautiful beauty. In addition, it is lighter, so when it is installed on the second or third floor, there is no need to worry about being overweight.
Nowadays, the new terrazzo can be prefabricated and cast in situ. The prefabricated terrazzo is very easy to install and construct and is similar to ceramic tiles. The new terrazzo is more widely used than the traditional terrazzo, and almost all families using ceramic tiles and floors can use the new terrazzo instead. The development of terrazzo is of great significance.
At present, there are a variety of floor and wall materials in China, and the new terrazzo should have a place. In addition, the development of high-end terrazzo technology can turn waste into treasure, which can achieve sustainable development and promote the development of synthetic stones and multi-functional stones.
08. Processed into daily necessities
Use leftover materials from corners to make lamp holders, desk calendar boards, pens, inkstones, rulers, color painting screens and various door and table handles, which are elegant and beautiful.
