Abstract

Since concrete is a hardened aggregates of various materials, it needs to be crushed for chemical analyses. However, the effect of sample crushing on the analytical results has not been precisely assessed till today. In this study, we prepared concrete test pieces using Portand cements and fly ashes as binding materials, and ponded ashes and sands as aggregates and analyzed the heavy metals of the test pieces using Standards for Fair Testing of Soil Contamination (SFTSC) and Wastes (SFTW). For this, each test piece was partially crushed at first and sieved for separation of grains of <0.15 mm, 0.15-0.5 mm, and 0.5-5 mm from the same crushed samples (Crushing Method I). Results of those samples using SFTSC showed a clear trend that analyzed heavy metal concentrations are higher in the finer fractions. Particularly, fractions with <0.15 mm indicated much higher concentrations than the theoretical ones, which were calculated based on the concentrations of individual materials and their mixing fractions. In contrast, the analytical results were generally comparable with the theoretical ones when the test pieces were totally pulverized such that all the crushed grains were <0.15 mm in size (Crushing Method II). These results are associated with the fact that cement materials and fly ashes, which are high in heavy metals relative to other materials, are enriched in the fine fractions. The analytical results using the SFTW derived very low concentrations in most of parameters and did not indicate the dependence of concentrations on the crushing methods due to using distilled water as leaching agent.

Keywords concrete, sample preparation, cement, coal ash, heavy metal analysis, Standard for Fair Testing of Soil Contamination