Multifunctional valorization of alkaline industrial by-products: Bridging wastewater treatment, CO2 mineral carbonation, and construction reuse
Results in Engineering, cilt.32, 2026 (ESCI, Scopus)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Derleme
- Cilt numarası: 32
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Doi Numarası: 10.1016/j.rineng.2026.112643
- Dergi Adı: Results in Engineering
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Scopus
- Anahtar Kelimeler: Carbon utilization, Circular economy, Contaminant immobilization, Engineering performance, Hybrid review, Material reactivity, Process integration
- Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
Alkaline industrial by-products (AIBs) are reactive residues from metallurgical, energy, waste-incineration, alumina, and pulp and paper industries, including steel slags, incineration ashes, red mud, and lime mud. Their alkalinity, mineralogy, surface chemistry, and Ca-, Mg-, Fe-, Al-, and aluminosilicate-bearing phases create opportunities for wastewater-related processes, CO₂ mineral carbonation, and construction reuse. Yet these functions are usually investigated within separate research domains, obscuring how shared material properties and process-induced transformations can enable or constrain multifunctional valorization. This review addresses this fragmentation through a multilevel hybrid bibliometric and critical synthesis of AIB characterization, physicochemical mechanisms, environmental behavior, carbonation performance, construction functionality, and cross-domain intersections. Pairwise searches yielded 2,059 unique studies, while restricted screening identified only 10 studies (0.49%) that substantively connected AIBs, wastewater, carbonation, and construction reuse, demonstrating the rarity of fully integrated evidence. The key novelty is the development of a cross-domain mechanistic and configurational framework that goes beyond application-by-application assessment and organizes AIB valorization based on shared reactivity, material transformation, and functional compatibility. The framework treats wastewater-related processes, CO₂ mineral carbonation, and construction reuse as interdependent but non-hierarchical domains, combined through coupled, sequential, or branched pathways based on material properties and process objectives. The synthesis further shows that integration is conditional because processing can alter alkalinity, mineralogy, contaminant mobility, pore structure, and downstream reactivity. Future research should compare alternative configurations, track material and contaminant evolution across processing stages, couple durability with long-term leaching, validate realistic pilot-scale operation, and integrate techno-economic, life-cycle, and performance-based regulatory assessment.