Senior Design Study Potential for Butte Mine Waste to be Used in Increasingly Popular 'Green' Concrete

Five Montana Tech seniors have spent much of the past year working through a senior design project where they test whether or not waste mine tailings from the Yankee Doodle Tailings Pond could be used in a growing environmentally friendly industry.

"Green" concrete reduces the amount of cement needed by substituting other materials. In 2022 it was estimated that 7-8% of global carbon dioxide emissions originated from the production of cement. In the students' experiment, they created concrete cylinders that contained different amounts of mine waste materials and injected carbon dioxide. In add...