Production of Artificial Stone from Dimension Stone Waste

Million tons of waste is produced annually in mining and processing of dimension stone in Iran. In most cases, the waste is released in nature that would cause environment hazards. In this work, artificial stone slabs were manufactured by combination of coarse waste and sludge powder of stone cutting factories. The results show, the manufactured stone slabs have physical and mechanical specifications according to Iranian national standards for building stone. With increasing the amount of resin in the composition, the flexural and tensile strength were increased and the compressive strength and water absorption coefficient were decreased. The slabs produced from granite waste compare to the slabs produced from marble waste had better physical and mechanical specifications. At the optimum condition, with the aim of using more waste, with a composition of 90% marble waste and 10% resin, artificial stone slabs were produced which have compressive strength 143 MPa, flexural strength 21MPa, tensile strength 25 MPa, water absorption coefficient 1% and density 2.32 g/cm3.