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Technical case record · Industrial materials

Durango tailings in glass

Tailings, recycled bottle glass and fluxes were melted into experimental ornamental glass.

Northeastern Durango, Mexico · mine anonymisedLaboratory study · 2025

Research by Escobedo-Bretado and colleagues (2025)

All authors & citation

Miguel Ángel Escobedo-Bretado; Patricia Ponce-Peña; Martha Poisot; Alicia Rodríguez-Pulido; Diola Marina Núñez-Ramírez; Luis Alberto Bretado-Aragón; René H. Lara; Luis Medina-Torres; Zoe V. Quiñones-Jurado; Roberto Briones-Gallardo; María Azucena González-Lozano (2025). Characterization and Property Evaluation of Glasses Made from Mine Tailings, Glass Waste, and Fluxes. DOI: 10.3390/recycling10020039

CC BY 4.0 · Original research credit belongs to the authors. Summary by Waste2Resource.

Results

Five mixtures produced cast glass. The sixth was too viscous to pour from the crucible. MTG4 and MTG5 performed best in the chemical-resistance tests; the authors reported retention of arsenic, lead and zinc.

§§3.1–3.2; Tables 5–6 ↗

How it was tested

Silver-processing tailings from Durango were combined with waste bottle glass and fluxes. Samples were held at 400°C for one hour, then at 1,350°C for one hour. Powdered glass underwent acid and alkaline exposure at 96°C for three hours. Chemical resistance and density were measured in triplicate. The abstract gives 1,370°C, whereas the methods give 1,350°C.

§§2.1–2.3; abstract (temperature discrepancy) ↗

Study limits

The authors caution that chemical-resistance results have high variability. They state that dilatometric and viscosity analyses are required for industrial considerations.

§3.2 and §4 ↗

Further work proposed

The authors propose heat treatment to make glass-ceramics and characterisation for use as glazes on ceramic bodies.

§4 ↗

Original sources

Miguel Ángel Escobedo-Bretado; Patricia Ponce-Peña; Martha Poisot; Alicia Rodríguez-Pulido; Diola Marina Núñez-Ramírez; Luis Alberto Bretado-Aragón; René H. Lara; Luis Medina-Torres; Zoe V. Quiñones-Jurado; Roberto Briones-Gallardo; María Azucena González-Lozano (2025). Characterization and Property Evaluation of Glasses Made from Mine Tailings, Glass Waste, and Fluxes.

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