TY - JOUR A1 - Stawski, Tomasz A1 - Karafiludis, Stephanos A1 - Pimentel, Carlos A1 - Montes-Hernández, German A1 - Kochovski, Zdravko A1 - Bienert, Ralf A1 - Weimann, Karin A1 - Emmerling, Franziska A1 - Scoppola, Ernesto A1 - Van Driessche, Alexander E.S. T1 - Solution-driven processing of calcium sulfate: The mechanism of the reversible transformation of gypsum to bassanite in brines JF - Journal of Cleaner Production N2 - Here, we show that calcium sulfate dihydrate (gypsum) can be directly, rapidly and reversibly converted to calcium sulfate hemihydrate (bassanite) in high salinity solutions (brines). The optimum conditions for the efficient production of bassanite in a short time (<5 min) involve the use of brines with c(NaCl) > 4 M and maintaining a temperature, T > 80 °C. When the solution containing bassanite crystals is cooled down to around room temperature, eventually gypsum is formed. When the temperature is raised again to T > 80 °C, bassanite is rapidly re-precipitated. This contrasts with the better-known behaviour of the bassanite phase in low-salt environments. In low-salinity aqueous solutions, bassanite is considered to be metastable with respect to gypsum and anhydrite, and therefore gypsum-to-bassanite conversion does not occur in pure water. Interestingly, the high-salinity transformation of gypsum-to-bassanite has been reported by many authors and used in practice for several decades, although its very occurrence actually contradicts numerical thermodynamic predictions regarding solubility of calcium sulfate phases. By following the evolution of crystalline phases with in situ and time-resolved X-ray diffraction/scattering and Raman spectroscopy, we demonstrated that the phase stability in brines at elevated temperatures was inaccurately represented in the thermodynamic databases. Most notably for c(NaCl) > 4 M, and T > 80 °C gypsum becomes readily more soluble than bassanite, which induces the direct precipitation of the latter from gypsum. The fact that these transformations are controlled by the solution provides extensive opportunities for precise manipulation of crystal formation. Our experiments confirmed that bassanite remained the sole crystalline phase for many hours before reverting into gypsum. This property is extremely advantageous for practical processing and efficient crystal extraction in industrial scenarios. KW - Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering KW - Strategy and Management KW - General Environmental Science KW - Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment KW - Building and Construction KW - Calcium sulfate KW - Gypsum KW - Bassanite KW - Scattering KW - Raman KW - In situ KW - Synchrotron KW - BESSY KW - MySpot PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-594698 UR - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652624004591#appsec1 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.141012 SN - 0959-6526 VL - 440 SP - 1 EP - 12 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-59469 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Weimann, Karin A1 - Adam, Christian A1 - Buchert, M. A1 - Sutter, J. T1 - Environmental Evaluation of Gypsum Plasterboard Recycling JF - Minerals N2 - Gypsum is widely used in the construction sector and its worldwide consumption has been increasing for several decades. Depending on the life-time of the used gypsum products, an increase of gypsum in construction and demolition waste follows. Especially against the background of a circular economy, the recycling of waste gypsum is of growing importance. However, the use of recycled gypsum makes only sense if it is environmentally friendly. Therefore, an evaluation of the environmental impacts of an industrial-scale processing for the recycling of post-consumer gypsum waste was conducted. The evaluation was performed with an established life cycle assessment software. Original data provided by industry and complementary data from a database for life cycle assessments were used for the calculations. Two scenarios for recycled gypsum with different transportation distances were calculated. These results are compared with results of the environmental evaluation of gypsum derived from coal-fired power plants (FGD gypsum) and natural gypsum. The results show that utilization of recycled gypsum can be environmentally advantageous compared to the use of natural gypsum or FGD gypsum, especially in the impact categories land transformation and resource consumption (abiotic depletion potential). For most environmental impact categories the specific transportation distances have a strong influence. KW - Gypsum plasterboards KW - Gypsum waste KW - Recycled gypsum KW - Environmental evaluation PY - 2021 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-522321 DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/min11020101 SN - 2075-163X VL - 11 IS - 2 SP - 101 PB - MDPI CY - Basel, Schweiz AN - OPUS4-52232 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -