Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565

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Resources, Conservation & Recycling

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resconrec

A Comprehensive Review on Recycled Aggregate and Recycled

Aggregate Concrete
Bo Wang 1, Libo Yan 1, 2, *, Qiuni Fu 1, Bohumil Kasal 1, 2
1
Department of Organic and Wood-based Construction Materials, Technische Universität Braunschweig, Hopfengarten 20, 38102 Braunschweig, Germany
2
Center for Light and Environmentally-Friendly Structures, Fraunhofer Wilhelm-Klauditz-Institut, Bienroder Weg 54E, 38108 Braunschweig, Germany

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Using recycled aggregates from construction and demolition waste can preserve natural aggregate resources,
recycled aggregates reduce demand of landfill, and contribute to sustainable built environment. This study provides a comprehensive
recycled aggregate concrete review on recycled aggregate (RA) and recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) regarding their history, recycling,
mechanical properties
reuse and manufacture process, inherent defects (e.g. existing of additional interfacial transition zones in RAC),
models of compressive strength
and materials properties. Specifically, these properties of RAC include fresh concrete workability, physical and
chemical properties (i.e. density, carbonation depth, and chloride ion penetration), mechanical properties (i.e.
compressive, flexural, and splitting tensile strength as well as elastic modulus), and long-term performance (i.e.
freezing-thawing resistance, alkali-silica reaction resistance, creep, and dry shrinkage). On top of that, methods
for improving RAC mechanical properties and long-term performance are summarized and categorized into three
groups, i.e. (1) reduction of recycled aggregate porosity, (2) reduction of old mortar layer on recycled aggregate
surface, and (3) property improvement without recycled aggregate modification (i.e. different concrete mixing
design and addition of fibre reinforcement). Next, current regression-based models and artificial intelligence
models on the prediction of compressive strength, modulus, and compressive stress-strain curves of RAC are
reviewed and their limitations of those models are discussed. Furthermore, the state-of-the-art RAC applications
are presented. Additionally, challenges of RAC application are reviewed taking China as an example. The link
between material from CDW and EU green policy are discussed by analysing the previous research projects
funded by European Commission. Finally, future perspectives of RAC research focus are discussed, i.e. devel­
opment of “green” treatment methods on recycled aggregates, further direction on nanoparticle application in
RAC, and the establishment of database for RAC strength prediction.

1. Introduction
“Let’s get this on the table right away, without mincing words. With
regard to the climate crisis, yes, it’s time to panic.” As mentioned by
Pierrehumbert (Pierrehumbert, 2019), the earth is suffering from envi­
ronmental degradation such as the global warming or resource scarcity.
To fight against such threats, the world is in action. For example, the
Paris Agreement was signed in 2015 focusing on the reduction of the
greenhouse gases emission. The European Union has set the European
Green Deal initiatives that there will be Zero-carbon emission (the car­
bon neutrality) by 2050 and the economic growth should be decoupled
from the usage of resources. A similar policy was also implemented by
Chinese government that the carbon neutrality will be achieved by
2060. Concrete, as the most widely used construction and building
material, has been dominating the construction material market since
1900s (Walberg, 2016), and it accounts for around 8% of the entire
global carbon dioxide emission (Warburton, 2020). Concrete is a com­
posite material composed of aggregates (i.e. sand, gravel, or crushed
stones) bonded together by cement paste (i.e. mixture of water and
Portland cement). The world production of cement has been tripled from
1.10 billion tonnes to 3.27 billion tonnes in the past two decades (Verein
Deutscher, 2019). With increasing construction, the estimated cement
production could reach 4.83 billion tonnes in 2030 (Verein Deutscher,
2019). This could supply for the production of a large volume of con­
crete, which demands a progressive increase in resources such as natural
stones as natural aggregates (NAs), since they (i.e. fine and coarse ag­
gregates) normally account for 60%-75% of the total volume of concrete
(America’s Cement Manufacturers. Concrete materials 2019). In 2015,

* Correspondence: Libo Yan, Tel.: +49-531-2155-257

E-mail addresses: l.yan@tu-braunschweig.de, libo.yan@wki.fraunhofer.de (L. Yan).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105565
Received 9 September 2020; Received in revised form 11 March 2021; Accepted 11 March 2021
Available online 18 May 2021
0921-3449/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
B. Wang et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565

Table 1 Protection Agency 2019). The CDW usually consists of bulky and heavy
The world’s aggregate consumption for construction market (billion tonnes) by materials, e.g. concrete, wood, asphalt, gypsum, metals, bricks, glass,
Freedonial Group, Inc. (Group, 2019) plastics, and others such as soil and rocks. The amount of CDW gener­
Year % Annual growth ated worldwide in 2018 is shown in Figure 1 (a). China had the largest
2005 2010 2015 2005-2010 2010-2015 CDW production (i.e. around 2360 million tonnes), followed by the
North America 3.3 3.0 3.7 -1.7 4.3 United States (i.e. around 600 million tonnes) and India (i.e. around 530
Western Europe 2.9 2.6 3.1 -2.1 3.0 million tonnes in 2016). The EU also generated significant amount of
Asia/Pacific 16.0 24.8 32.6 9.1 5.7 CDW, where France and Germany were predominant contributors of
Other 5.1 7.1 8.9 6.6 5.0
240 and 225 million tonnes, respectively. The CDW generation per
Worldwide 27.3 37.4 48.3 6.5 5.2
population is given in Figure 1(b). Most of the European countries stay
in the leading position, where Netherlands had a value of 5.9 tonnes
approximately 48.3 billion tonnes of NAs were consumed worldwide CDW/capita. Austria was second behind Netherlands with a value of 5.5
and the every 5-year growth was estimated as more than 5% (Table 1) tonnes CDW/capita. However, that of the powerhouses with large CDW
(The Freedonia Group, 2019). It has been forecasted that the demand of generation such as China, US and India were lower than those European
NAs in the course of next two or three decades will double with the countries with only 1.7, 1.8, and 0.4 tonnes CDW/capita, respectively.
current increasing rate. According to Kabirifar et al. (Kabirifar et al., 2020) around 35% of the
According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, construction global CDW was landfilled. Illegal dumping (i.e. disposal the waste
and demolition waste (CDW) is defined as the waste that is usually without any pre-treatment in the landfill such as separation of hazardous
generated during new construction activities or the renovation, or de­ components in the waste) is a common and conventional method for the
molition of existing construction such as streets, highways, bridges, disposal of CDW. The disposal of CDW is still an ongoing problem (e.g.
buildings, utility plants, piers and dams (United States Environmental harmful for environment, large landfill demand) in many countries

Figure 1. The countries with most of the CDW generation around world in 2018 (*the data of India and Russia are from 2016; the data from Brazil and Australia are
from 2017: (a) total CDW output and (b) CDW generation per population (Ginga et al., 2020, Eurostat 2018, Eurostat 2020, US Environmental Protection Agency
2020, The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, India 2020, Granwal, 2020, Aleksanin, 2019, Nunes and Mahler, 2020) .

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B. Wang et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565

(United Nations Environment Programme 2015). The bulk of CDW is The scarcity for the landfill space could also result in other consequences
inert (e.g. 84% was reported in Ref. (Education Bureau of Government of such as a sharp rise in the costs of waste disposal and environmental
Hongkong 2019)), which is chemically inactive with other materials in concerns (Department of Design and Construction 2019, Barhmaiah
the atmosphere or earth. The increasing amount of CDW results in the et al., 2020). In addition, the CDW can contain hazardous materials such
demand of a large landfill space which may even occupy farmlands. as varnish, sealer, adhesives, lead-based paint or mercury (e.g. in fluo­
Zheng et al. (Zheng et al., 2017) reported that around 7.5 billion m3 rescent lamp) (Rossow, 2004). These contaminants will lead to the
CDW has been dumped in the landfill sites in China in 2013, which can pollution of the earth and ground water.
cover half of Singapore’s total land area if the dumping height is 20 m. Against the above background, extensive actions have been taken by
governments, academic and industrials on the recycling and reuse of
Table 2 CDW to reduce its negative environmental and economic impacts. For
List of latest reviews on RA and RAC. example, EU has set the goal in 2008 that the percentage of non-haz­
ardous CDW should be reduced by 70% by weight by 2020. According to
Literature Main focuses
Pacheco-Torgal et al. (Torgal et al., 2020), this could be only achieved if
Silva et al. (Silva et al., • Fresh state performance of RAC such as workability, the annual growth of the recycling is about 2%, whereas the actual
2018) bleeding, static segregation, hydration temperature,
growth was only 1%. Conventionally, CDW can be recycled and reused
air content of fresh concrete, and fresh density
Guo et al. (Guo et al., • Durability of RAC, e.g. permeability, alkali-silica as garden pavement, gabions, or unbounded layer of street construction.
2018) reaction, and frost resistance However, their consumption is still limited compared to the generated
Tam et al. (Tam et al.,) • Microstructural properties improvement methods of quantity of CDW. For around 70 years, research has showed that using
RAC such as carbonation, biodeposition, or mineral
recycled aggregates (RAs) from CDW to replace natural aggregates
admixtures
Tam et al. (Tam et al., • Carbonation mechanisms and carbonation
(NAs) in new concrete application as recycled aggregate concrete (RAC)
2020) technologies for the improvement of RA and the RAC can provide benefits for the environment and economy. By estimation,
Liang et al. (Liang performance using RAs as a replacement of NAs for concrete construction could save
et al., 2020) 10% ~ 20% of the material cost (Zheng et al., 2017). Besides, a life cycle
Shi et al. (Shi et al., • The enhancement methods (e.g. grinding, pre-
assessment on the environmental impact of recycled aggregate in Hong
2016) soaking, polymer emulsion, pozzolan addition,
biodeposition and carbonation) on the aggregate from Kong revealed that recycling coarse aggregates from CDW can reduce
recycled concrete for RAC application 65% greenhouse gases emission and save 58% of non-renewable energy
• The evaluation of the enhancement methods consumption (Hossain et al., 2016) compared to producing natural
Liang et al. (Liang et al., • Chloride transportation for steel corrosion in the RAC
aggregate concrete. Nevertheless, the mechanical properties of RAC (e.g.
2021)
Verian et al. (Verian • The characteristics of recycled concrete aggregate,
compression, tensile, and bending) are generally inferior to the corre­
et al., 2018) and the mechanical performance of RAC containing sponding natural aggregate concrete (NAC) counterpart, which limits
Thomas et al. (Thomas recycled concrete aggregate, such as compressive the application of RAC for structural concrete.
et al., 2018) strength, flexural strength, splitting tensile strength,
E-modulus
2. Research Gaps and Methodologies
• The long-term performance such as chloride
permeability, acid resistance, freezing-thawing
resistance, and shrinkage Up to date, there are many review papers on RA and RAC. The details

Figure 2. Research framework of this study.

3
B. Wang et al.
of the latest reviews are shown in Table 2. Despite of that, there are still
many gaps on the review of RA and RAC, which drive us to provide this
comprehensive review. With the booming research interests on RA and
RAC, a lot of relevant studies have been recently conducted, which have
not been reviewed and included in the database of RA and RAC. In most
cases, the previous reviews (e.g. all the listed reviews in Table 2 except
for Silva et al. (Silva et al., 2018)) only focused on recycled concrete
aggregate for RAC. However, using other RA such as recycled clay brick
aggregate or recycled mixed aggregate (a mixture of recycled concrete
aggregate, recycled masonry red brick, and sometimes asphalt pave­
ment) also contributes to the landfill reduction and natural resource
preservation. These RA should be also considered as an essential part
when reviewing studies of RA and RAC. With the further investigation
on RA and RAC, many new technologies/methods were introduced such
as using artificial intelligence models for the strength prediction of RAC.
Such new technologies/methods were rarely reported in the previous
reviews. In addition, the state-of-the-art application of RAC and the
current challenges of improving quality of RAC have not been updated.
How the research and applications of RA and RAC respond to the current
environmental policy (e.g. the EU Green Deal (A European Green Deal
2021)) were barely mentioned in the previous reviews. All these aspects
should be comprehensively reviewed to identify the present barriers and
establish a roadmap for further investigations.
To fill the gaps, we provide this comprehensive review on RA and
RAC. The review methodology is presented in Figure 2. Firstly, history of
RAC, recycling, reuse and manufacture process of RA, the mechanism,
the mechanical, physical, and chemical properties as well as the
improvement methods for RAC mechanical properties are summarized.
Next, existing models for the prediction of RAC compressive strength,
elastic modulus, and compressive stress-strain response are presented.
Thirdly, the present practical structural and non-structural applications
of RAC are demonstrated. Fourthly, the challenges of RAC application
and the link between material from CDW and EU green policy are dis­
cussed. Finally, future perspectives of research demand on RAC are
presented. In order to have a comprehensive review on RA and RAC, the
major database such as google scholar, Scopus, and Web of science were
used. The key words such as recycled aggregate, recycled aggregate
concrete, construction and demolition wastes, mechanical properties of
recycled aggregate concrete, durability of recycled aggregate concrete,
treatment of recycled aggregate, improvement methods for recycled
aggregate concrete, fibre reinforced recycled aggregate concrete, and
recycled aggregate concrete model were typed in for search. The
research papers reviewed in this study were published between year
1978 and 2020. Data filtering has been conducted to have reliable re­
sults. More than 500 academic papers are selected during the database
search based on their citation and the impact factor of the journal. Since
conference paper usually provides less comprehensive information than
journal papers, conference papers are excluded in this study. Besides,
articles with inconsistent research topic to this study are also excluded,
Figure 3. The increasing number of articles on the topic of “recycled aggregate
concrete” along history (from 1898 to June 2020) based on the search from
“web of science” (Web of Science 2020).
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Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565
e.g. recycled aggregate for asphalt pavement and concrete rebar in
recycled aggregate concrete. Specific screening is also considered in the
sections of physical and mechanical properties of recycled aggregate
concrete. For strength/modulus change with different ratios of recycled
concrete aggregates in section 3.4.3, some results are not considered,
since the data samples are limited (less than five) to provide a reliable
statistical analysis. For the other technical aspects such as RAC physical
properties in section 3.4, RAC improvement in section 3.5, and the RAC
models for strength prediction in section 4, we try to present all the
results throughout our literature review to have the comprehensive re­
view on the RA and RAC. In general, a total of 204 academic references
are cited and reviewed in this study. Eleven standards and 29 reports
(from official associations, government, and news) are also cited. The
reports are mainly used in the discussion of construction and demolition
waste generation in “Section 1, Introduction” and the “Section 5,
Application in Practice” to present the current status on RAC practical
application and CDW generation. In Section 5.3, sixteen completed and
ongoing EU projects are cited to discuss the link between EU green
policy and RAC or CDW.
3. Recycled Aggregates (RAs) and Recycled Aggregate Concrete
(RAC)
3.1. History of RAC
Using material from CDW as aggregates to produce RAC in new
concrete was firstly introduced and applied during and after the World
War II since enormous amount of rubble and debris had been generated
after bombardment to cities, especially in United Kingdom and Germany
(Nixon, 1978). At that time, it was found that RAC had higher water
absorption, lower compressive strength, comparable freeze/thaw resis­
tance, and inferior dry shrinkage compared with NAC (Nixon, 1978,
Hansen, 1986). From 1945 to 1985, comprehensive research focused on
the recycling process (e.g. separation and production), RA properties (e.
g. density, shape, and water absorption) and further on mechanical
properties (e.g. compression, tensile, and bending) as well as the
long-term performance (e.g. permeability, frost resistance or carbon­
ation) of RAC (Hansen, 1986). Until 21st century, mixing design of RAC,
using RAC as prestressed concrete, and large-scale structure (e.g. 15
meter RAC beams under around 1300kN prestress from Dolara et al.
(Dhir et al., 1998)) were then considered. Recently, the research
emphasis has been shifted to the improvement for recycled aggregate
quality. Due to the increasing awareness on environment protection and
the demand for sustainable development, there are more and more in­
vestigations on RA and RAC. Especially in the past 20 years, the number
of publications on RAC has exponentially increased as illustrated in
Figure 3. These extensive studies advanced the knowledge on RA and
RAC, e.g. the mechanism, the mechanical, physical, and chemical
properties of RA and RAC, improving methods for mechanical properties
of RAC as well as the strength models for RAC property prediction. Apart
from the increasing number of publications in the field of RAs and RACs,
several national standards or guidelines have been developed for RAC
(The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, India 2016),
including for example DIN 4226-100 (2002, Germany) (German Insti­
tute for Standardization), JIS A 5021/5022/5023 (Japan) (Japanese
Industrial Standards Committee, Japanese Industrial Standards Com­
mittee 2005, Japanese Industrial Standards Committee 2006), BS
8500:2 (2002, Great Britain) (BSI. BS 8500-2 2002), PTV 406 (2003,
Belgium) (Prescriptions Techniques, P. T.V. 406 Édition 1.1 24-11-
2002), GB/T 25176 – 2010 (2010, China) (GB/T 25176 - 2010 2010),
GB/T 25177 – 2010 (2010, China) (GB/T 25177 –2010 2010), ASTM D
8038 – 16 (2016, US) (ASTM D 8038 - 16), ASTM C 1798/C 1798M – 19
(2019, US) (ASTM C1798/C1798M - 19), and SIA 2030 (2010,
Switzerland) (SIA 2030 2020).
B. Wang et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565

Figure 4. Producing process of RA and RAC based on Pellegrino et al. (The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, India 2016) and Hansen et al.
(Hansen, 1986), the size of by-pass from the primary screening can be changed due to the screening facilities and the requirement of final RA products. CDW indicates
construction and demolition waste; RAC and NAC are for recycled and natural aggregate concrete, respectively; RA and NA are for recycled and natural aggregate,
respectively.

3.2. Manufacturing Process of Recycled Aggregates
The producing process of RAs has not significantly changed during
the past several decades, even though the CDW recycling facilities has
been upgraded. According to Ref. (The Ministry of Environment, Forest
and Climate Change, India 2016), there are mainly two sorts of CDW
recycling facilities, i.e. stationary and mobile facilities. For stationary
facilities, CDW needs to be transported to the facility and processed. The
stationary facilities have higher handling capacity and produce RA with
better quality compared with the mobile facilities. The mobile facility, in
contrast, can process the CDW on sites, so that the recycled aggregates
can be reused for new construction directly without additional
transportation.
Figure 4 depicts production process of RAs including nine steps: (1)
size reduction: reduction of large pieces of debris through hydraulic
crusher or pneumatic hammer (Bansal and Singh, 2015); (2) pre-sepa­
ration: removal of large pieces of steel, wood, plastics or paper for higher
efficiency of the process; (3) primary screening: removal of small par­
ticles such as soil and gypsum; (4) primary crushing and magnetic sep­
aration: reduction of the RA size and removal of the remaining ferrous

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B. Wang et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565

Figure 5. Illustration of the “wall effect” and ITZ (red square) based on Scrivener et al. (Scrivener et al., 2004).

Figure 6. (a) delineated stripes between yellow lines and (b) detected porosity by grey value with the strip wide of 5 µm from Gao et al. (Gao et al., 2013), the
volume percentage of sand in mortar L and mortar H was 10% and 50%, respectively. Permission granted.

matters; (5) secondary screening (e.g. 10 mm scalping screen (Hansen,
1986)): further removal of soil, gypsum or dust; (6) decontamination:
removal of all light weight components such as wood, plastics or paper
by washing or air-sifting; (7) final crushing to reduce the size of debris;
(8) washing, screening, and air-sifting to remove the remaining con­
taminants, e.g. plastic, paper, and wood; and (9) separating the aggre­
gates into different size fractions for various applications, e.g. small size
(0-45 mm) for garden paths. It is worthy to be mentioned that, in the
primary screening process (Step 3), the by-pass between 10 mm and 40
mm could be moved to step (8). The by-pass of larger than 40 mm should
be further crushed in step (4). The by-pass of less than 10 mm will be
removed as they are mainly soil and gypsum.
Based on the origin of CDW, the RAs can be sorted as recycled con­
crete aggregates (RCA, i.e. the recycled aggregates originated from old
concrete wastes) (Sonawane and Pimplikar, 2013, Xiao et al., 2005,
Dabhade et al., 2012, Abd Elhakam et al., 2012, Chen et al., 2016, Xiao
et al., 2014, Dimitriou et al., 2018, Fonseca et al., 2011, Gesoglu et al.,
2015, González-Fonteboa and Martínez-Abella, 2008, James et al.,
2011, Kou and Poon, 2012, Kou et al., 2007, Pedro et al., 2017, Prasad
and RATHISH, 2007, Rahal, 2007, Thomas et al., 2018, Yang et al.,

6
B. Wang et al.
Figure 7. Contour map (a) and the corresponding distribution (b) of indentation modulus in GPa of old ITZ detected by AFM from Xiao et al. (Xiao et al., 2013).
Permission granted.
2011), recycled clay brick aggregates (RCBA, i.e., the recycled aggre­
gates originated from old clay brick wastes) (Cachim, 2009, de et al.,
2005, Debieb and Kenai, 2008, Gao et al., 2016, Kesegić et al., 2008,
Nepomuceno et al., 2018, Zheng et al., 2018, Gao et al., 2019, Huang
et al., 2017, Yan et al., 2017), recycled ceramic tile aggregates (RCTA, i.
e. the recycled aggregates originated from old ceramic tile wastes)
(Topcu and Canbaz, 2007, Daniyal and Ahmad, 2015) and reclaimed
asphalt pavement aggregates (RAP, i.e. the recycled aggregates origi­
nated from old asphalt pavement wastes) (Hassan et al., , Huang et al.,
2006) for producing RAC. Among those different types of RAs, recycled
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Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565
concrete aggregate and recycled clay brick aggregate are the two most
investigated RA materials mainly due to their considerable amount of
waste generation (Yan et al., 2017).
3.3. The “Wall effect” and Mechanism of RAC
3.3.1. The “Wall effect” and the Near-aggregate Mechanism
During concrete mixing, the concrete coarse aggregates will be
mixed with cement. Since the size of a coarse aggregate particle (usually
10 – 20 mm in diameter) is several orders of magnitude larger than that
B. Wang et al.
Figure 8. Illustration of RA in RAC.
of the cement grains (usually from less than one micron to 100 microns
in diameter), the coarse aggregates can be considered as a “wall” at the
zone that is adjacent to aggregate. Since cement grains have different
sizes and shapes, they cannot seamlessly contact the aggregate surface.
Voids will be generated adjacent to the aggregate and filled by small
particles or molecules, i.e. small cement grain, air, and water (Figure 5).
This phenomenon is defined as the “wall effect” (Scrivener et al., 2004)
and this aggregate adjacent zone is a spherical cover with a thickness of
tens of µm encasing the aggregate. This cover is regarded as the inter­
facial transition zone (ITZ). Because of the higher amount of small grains
and voids at the ITZ, the load carrying capacity of ITZ is always lower
than that of bulk mortar in concrete. As the transition from ITZ to the
bulk mortar paste is progressive, no clear boundary can be identified
between the two matrices. However, the ITZ can be still estimated by the
distribution of the porosity, or the indentation hardness or modulus. The
backscattered electron-scanning electron microscope can be used to
detect the porosity distribution. After a piece of concrete is impregnated
with epoxy, the brightness of epoxy in pores usually has an upper
threshold of grey value (e.g. 70 in Gao et al. (Gao et al., 2013)), which is
lower than that of other components of concrete. Therefore, the porosity
in successive strips around the aggregates (Figure 6a, the boundaries of
the strips are marked by yellow lines) with a certain width can be
detected. Example can be found in the study by Gao et al. (Gao et al.,
2013) that the ITZ for mortar L (10 % of sand to mortar in volume) and
mortar H (50 % of sand to mortar in volume) were respectively 10 µm
and 15 µm, if the strip wide was 5 µm (Figure 6b). The distribution of the
indentation hardness or modulus can be detected by a nanoindentation
Figure 9. Relationship between RA (recycled brick) replacement ratio and the
concrete fresh density with different water cement ratio (w/c) redrawn from
Cachim et al. (Cachim, 2009). Brick A and B indicates two kinds of RCBA from
different local industry plants, respectively. Permission granted.
8
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565
system, e.g. atomic force microscopy (AFM). Xiao et al. (Xiao et al.,
2013) investigated the indentation modulus (EIT) in both old ITZ
(interface between NA and old mortar on recycled concrete aggregate)
and new ITZ (interface between recycled concrete aggregate and new
mortar) of RAC by AFM. The ITZ could be identified as it usually exhibits
lower EIT than the NA and the mortar matrix. An example can be found
in Figure 7 that the average EIT at the distance of 25 µm to 70 µm was
lower than that between 0 µm to 25 µm as well as above 70 µm. This
result indicates that the old ITZ for the tested aggregate was 45 µm.
3.3.2. Mechanism of RAC
Figure 8 illustrates the example of recycled concrete aggregates
(RCA) applied in the recycled aggregate concrete (RAC). Deriving from
the CDW, most of the recycled concrete aggregates consist of two parts,
natural aggregates (NA), and the old mortar layer (attached onto the
surface of the NA). Therefore, two interfacial transition zones (ITZs) can
be found in the RAC, the old ITZ between natural coarse aggregate and
the old mortar (denoted by the light blue line), and the new ITZ between
RA and the new mortar (denoted by the dark blue line). Compared with
NAC with only one new ITZ, the RAC usually has larger volume of ITZ.
Hence, the porosity of RAC is normally higher than the corresponding
NAC leading to inferior mechanical properties (e.g. compression,
bending, and splitting tensile) for RAC. Increasing porosity will also
affect the permeability of the RAC and this may lead to different con­
centration gradients (e.g. for water, chloride ion, or carbon dioxide) as
compared to the corresponding NAC, which has implications concerning
e.g. rebar corrosion protection or ageing. Moreover, the NA enclosed by
a layer of old mortar has also lower compressive strength than that of the
pure NA and additional cracks can be easily generated in the old mortar
layer during the entire process of RA manufactory. A service load could
easily cause propagation of these pre-existing cracks, resulting in the
final crushing of RAC (Verian, 2012). Except for the aggregate, the im­
purities such as wood, plastic, aluminium in the recycled aggregate also
affect the mechanical properties of the final concrete products. Ac­
cording to Park et al. (Park and Noguchi, 2013), the compressive
strength of recycled aggregate concrete had a decrease up to 7% if 0.05%
aluminium impurities (size 2.5-5 mm) were in the aggregate.
3.4. Mechanical and Physical Properties of RAC
It is important to understand the behaviour of RAC by comparing
different mechanical and physical properties with NAC in both fresh and
hardened phases. Thus, the effect of replacement ratio of RA on (1) the
workability of fresh concrete, (2) the mechanical properties of RAC (i.e.
compressive strength, modulus, flexural strength, and splitting tensile
strength), (3) physical and chemical properties of RAC (i.e. density,
B. Wang et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565

Figure 10. Box plot of strength/

modulus change with different replace­
ment ratio of recycled concrete aggre­
gates and the sample size at each
replacement ratio for (a) compression
(Sonawane and Pimplikar, 2013, Xiao
et al., 2005, Dabhade et al., 2012, Abd
Elhakam et al., 2012, Chen et al., 2016,
Xiao et al., 2014, Dimitriou et al., 2018,
Fonseca et al., 2011, Gesoglu et al.,
2015, González-Fonteboa and Martíne­
z-Abella, 2008, James et al., 2011, Kou
and Poon, 2012, Kou et al., 2007, Pedro
et al., 2017, Prasad and RATHISH,
2007, Rahal, 2007, Thomas et al., 2018,
Yang et al., 2011); (b) E-modulus
(Dimitriou et al., 2018, Gesoglu et al.,
2015, González-Fonteboa and Martíne­
z-Abella, 2008, James et al., 2011,
Pedro et al., 2017, Prasad and RATH­
ISH, 2007, Rahal, 2007, Thomas et al.,
2018, Chakradhara Rao et al., 2011); (c)
flexural strength (Sonawane and Pim­
plikar, 2013, Dimitriou et al., 2018,
Gesoglu et al., 2015, James et al., 2011,
Prasad and RATHISH, 2007, Thomas
et al., 2018, Yang et al., 2011)and (d)
splitting tensile strength (Dabhade
et al., 2012, Dimitriou et al., 2018,
Fonseca et al., 2011, Gesoglu et al.,
2015, González-Fonteboa and Martíne­
z-Abella, 2008, Kou et al., 2007, Pedro
et al., 2017, Prasad and RATHISH,
2007, Thomas et al., 2018, Yang et al.,
2011, Chakradhara Rao et al., 2011).

Figure 11. Compressive strength of RAC with RBCA in % throughout the literature (Cachim, 2009, de et al., 2005, Debieb and Kenai, 2008, Gao et al., 2016, Kesegić
et al., 2008, Nepomuceno et al., 2018, Zheng et al., 2018).

carbonation depth, and chloride ion penetration), and (4) long-term
performance of RAC (i.e. freezing-thawing resistance, alkali-silica re­
action resistance, creep, and shrinkage) are reviewed comprehensively
below.
3.4.1. Workability
The workability of concrete is defined as “the property of freshly
mixed concrete or mortar that determines the ease with which it can be
mixed, placed, consolidated, and finished to a homogenous condition”
(American Concrete Institute 2020). Low workability usually leads to
high porosity since the concrete with low workability is hard to be fully
compacted. Conventionally, the workability of fresh concrete can be
determined by the slump test. Researchers (Smith, 2010, American
Concrete Institute 2008, Sturtevant, 2007, Lotfi et al., 2014) pointed out
that fresh RAC always had a lower slump value than the corresponding
NAC mainly due to the higher water absorption capacity and, in the most
cases, rougher surfaces and more irregular shapes of the RAs (Kurda
et al., 2017, Verian et al., 2018). Therefore, to achieve the similar

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B. Wang et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565

workability to NAC, additional water is needed during the concrete
mixing. To have similar workability (the slump value was kept to 10 ± 2
cm) of all RAC and NAC samples, 9-13% extra water in weight were
added by Wagih et al. (Wagih et al., 2013) in RAC with recycled concrete
aggregate. Similar results can also be found in the study by Verian et al.
(Verian et al., 2018) that 5 % - 15 % extra water was required for the
RAC mixing to achieve the same workability of NAC.
3.4.2. Physical and Chemical Properties of RAC
analysed the correlation between the relative carbonation depth (i.e. the
ratio of carbonation depth of RAC to that of NAC) and recycled concrete
aggregate replacement ratio. A total of 600 testing results for coarse
recycled concrete aggregate specimens were summarized. With a 95%
probability of all the carbonation depths, the carbonation depth of the
coarse recycled concrete aggregates can be up to 2.5 times of the cor­
responding NAC under the same condition.
Ca(OH)2 + CO2 →CaCO3 + H2 O (1)

3.4.2.3. Chloride ion penetration. Besides concrete carbonation, the

3.4.2.1. Density. For recycled concrete aggregates, the old mortar
penetration of chloride ion is also one of the main causes that results in
attached on the virgin aggregates contributes to a higher mortar-to-
the corrosion of steel reinforcement for steel reinforced concrete.
natural aggregate ratio than that of NAC. Since mortar has higher
Chloride usually breaks down the passive layer of the steel reinforce­
porosity and lower density than those of natural aggregate, the density
ment and leads to the generation of pits. Inside the pit, the main reaction
of RAC is always lower than that of NAC. Generally, the average density
is the dissolution of iron, which leads to the local acidification. To bal­
of concrete reduces by approximately 5% if all natural coarse aggregates
ance the positive charge (the released iron ions), more chloride ions will
is replaced by RAs (Silva et al., 2018). Similar results are valid for
transfer to the pit location. This leads to the generation of hydroxyl ions
recycled clay brick aggregates (RCBA). Figure 9 shows the relationship
from the cathodic reaction, which tends to strengthen the protective film
between the density of fresh concrete and RA replacement ratio (i.e. the
in the passive region. As a result, all the reactions are stabilized and
ratio of RA replacement to NA) for RCBA sized between 5 and 10 mm
further corrosion occurs (Berrocal, 2017). Like carbonation, the chloride
reported by Cachim (Cachim, 2009). Brick A and B were recycled
ion penetration is also strongly influenced by the permeability of the
ceramic bricks obtained from two local industrial plants in Portugal. The
concrete as the chloride ion is usually transported through water.
water absorption of brick A and B were 15.8% and 18.9%, respectively,
Therefore, the chloride ion penetration of RAC is higher than that of
while that of natural aggregate was less than 1.33%. As can be seen, the
NAC due to the higher porosity of RAC. Guo et al. (Guo et al., 2018)
density of fresh concrete reduced with an increase in replacement ratio
summarized the influence of coarse RA (i.e. recycled concrete aggregate
of RCBA, regardless of the water/cement ratio. It is also worth noticing
and recycled mixed aggregate) replacement ratio on the chloride ion
that the reduction of density of fresh concrete when the replacement
penetration (represented by the relative total passed charge). They
ratio changed from 0% to 50% or 50% to 100% was quite limited (i.e. by
found out that the relative total passed charge increased as the content
around 6%).
of coarse RA increased. When RA replacement ratio reached to 100%,
the relative total passed charge of the recycled aggregate concrete could
3.4.2.2. Depth of Carbonation. Carbonation is a process when the cal­
be more than 2 times to that of the natural aggregate concrete.
cium hydroxide (Ca(OH)2) in concrete reacts with CO2 in air under the
presence of moisture. This reaction (Eq.1) transfers calcium hydroxide
3.4.3. Mechanical Properties of RAC
into calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and reduces the pH value of concrete.
Throughout the literature, a total number of 40 studies with 235 data
Generally, the pH value of a pore solution of uncarbonated concrete can
be between 12.5 and 13.5. After carbonation, the pH value can be
reduced to less than 9.0. Such a low pH value in the cement will degrade
the passivating layer on the surface of the embedded steel rebar and
expose the steel rebar to oxygen and water, leading to the corrosion of
the steel rebar in concrete (Hussain and Ishida, 2009, American Con­
crete Institute 1988, The Constructor-Civil Engineering Home for Civil
Engineers 2020). Carbonation depth is usually applied as a parameter to
describe the penetration velocity of carbon dioxide which depends on
the permeability and moisture content of concrete (Guo et al., 2018).
Generally, higher porosity leads to a higher permeability of concrete as
it is easier for water to penetrate into the concrete through the channels
formulated by the pores. Clasisse et al. (Claisse et al., 1999) investigated
the relationship between concrete porosity and carbonation depth. The
concrete with initial porosity of 35% by volume had always higher
carbonation depth (e.g. 35 mm after 140 days in CO2 chamber) than that
with initial porosity of 20% by volume (the carbonation depth of 20 mm Figure 12. ASR expansion of spratt aggregate at different ages and RA
replacement ratios (Johnson and Shehata, 2016) CMBT stands for concrete
in the same condition). Therefore, due to the higher porosity of RAC
microbar test. For each RA replacement ratio, the same sample was tested on
than that of the NAC, the carbonation depth of RAC is generally greater
28th and 56th day.
than the corresponding NAC. Silva et al. (Silva et al., 2015) statistical

Table 3
Detailed test techniques for ASR resistance adapted from Shehata et al. (Shehata et al., 2020)
Testing Methods Concrete prism test Accelerated mortar bar test Concrete microbar test

Standard ASTM C 1293-20 (ASTM C ASTM C1260-14 (ASTM C 1260-14) and ASTM C1567-13 (ASTM C RILEM AAR 5 (ASTM C 1567-13
1293-20) 1567-13) 2016)
Mixture Concrete Mortar Paste and coarse aggregate
Dimension (mm) 75 × 75 × 285 25 × 25 × 285 40 × 40 × 160 (or 285)
Aggregate (mm) 4.75 – 19.0 and sand Sand fraction < 4.75 4.0 -8.0 without sand
Soaking solution (e,g, No Yes Yes
NaOH)
Temperature 38◦ C 80◦ C 80◦ C

10
B. Wang et al.
points for compressive strength, 97 data points for elastic modulus, 92
data points for flexural strength, and 120 data points for splitting tensile
strength of RAC were collected and reviewed in this paper. Among those
studies, 25 studies focused on RAC made of recycled concrete aggregate,
seven were RAC with recycled clay brick aggregate and the rest were
RAC with other aggregates, e.g. mixed recycled aggregate (RMA) with
recycled concrete aggregate, recycled clay brick aggregates, bituminous,
and ceramic aggregates. Concrete strength of the reviewed RAC or the
referential NAC ranged mainly from 20 MPa to 80 MPa, expect for a
study by Brito et al. (de et al., 2005) (i.e. 13 MPa to 23 MPa for
non-structural concrete application). All these studies indicated that the
replacement ratio of RAs plays a critical parameter for determining the
mechanical properties of RAC. Thus, the relationships between the
mechanical properties and the replacement ratios of RAs are discussed
for RAC in the following sections. It should be noted here that due to the
limited data samples (less than 5) of some replacement ratios for sta­
tistics, the results (e.g. for compressive strength, recycled concrete
aggregate replacement ratio of 10% in Ref. (Sonawane and Pimplikar,
2013), 30% in Refs. (Sonawane and Pimplikar, 2013, Xiao et al., 2005),
40% in Ref. (Dabhade et al., 2012), 60% in Ref. (Dabhade et al., 2012),
70% in Ref. (Xiao et al., 2005), 75% in Refs. (Abd Elhakam et al., 2012,
Chen et al., 2016, Xiao et al., 2014) and 80% in Ref. (Dabhade et al.,
2012)) were not considered in the following box plot illustrations.
Moreover, these results represent values from different mixing pro­
cesses, test speeds and equipment and must be taken with caution.
3.4.3.4. Compressive Strength. In Figure 10(a), the line connects the
average values of the compressive strength with different replacement
ratios and the number over hatched columns represents the number of
relevant experiments considered. A noticeable descending tendency of
the average values indicated that the compressive strength of RAC
generally decreased with an increase in the replacement ratio of RAs.
Figure 11 illustrates the relationship between the compressive
strength of RAC with recycled clay brick aggregates (RCBA) and the
different replacement ratios of RCBA based on the experimental results
from the existing studies. Similar to the RAC with recycled concrete
aggregate (RCA), a general descending tendency is also observed for
RAC with RCBA. An exceptional case was found in the study by Cachim
et al. (Cachim, 2009), where the compressive strength of the RAC with
15% of RCBA was higher than that of the NAC by 6%. This could be
attributed to the pre-saturation of the bricks. Specifically, the additional
water could be either used for the further hydration or remained inside
the brick filling the pores of the brick. This interpretation should be
further verified since the discussion is not in accordance with
11
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565
experimental investigations.
3.4.3.5. Modulus of Elasticity in Compression. The relationship between
the elastic modulus of RAC with different replacement ratios of recycled
concrete aggregate for RAC is presented in Figure 10(b). As the
replacement ratio of recycled concrete aggregate increases, the elastic
modulus of the RAC decreases significantly. The reduction of average
elastic modulus is 4%, 15%, and 23% when the replacement ratio at
25%, 50%, and 100%, respectively. Regarding the relationship of elastic
modulus of RAC and the replacement ratios of recycled clay brick ag­
gregates for the RAC, most of the studies used in Figure 11 did not
analyse the E-modulus with the change of replacement ratios. Moreover,
comparisons of average values are not sufficient for making a conclusive
statements and statistical analysis of significant data needs to be done.
These should be further investigated and considered in the future studies
on RAC using recycled clay brick as aggregates.
3.4.3.6. Flexural Strength and splitting tensile strength. The relationship
between replacement ratios of recycled aggregate for RAC with relative
flexural strength as well as splitting tensile strength is illustrated in
Figure 10(c) and (d). Both relative flexural strength and splitting tensile
strength present generally descending responses with an increase of the
replacement ratio. The maximum reduction in the flexural strength is
approximately 11% corresponding to the replacement ratio of 100%
recycled concrete aggregate. The reduction of splitting tensile strength is
up to 16%. Exception can be found in RAC with 20% replacement ratio
for splitting tensile strength. Its relative splitting tensile strength (93% of
the splitting tensile strength of NAC) is 2% less than that of RAC with
25% replacement ratio and nearly the same as that of RAC with 50%
replacement ratio (93% of the splitting tensile strength of NAC). The
reason can be the systematic error generated in statistical analysis. For
the 20% replacement ratio, a large variation can be observed from the
graphic. Meanwhile, among all the 10 samples of 25% replacement
ratio, 9 of them were collected from one investigation by Thomas et al.
(Thomas et al., 2018). This may also reduce the representativeness of
sampling.
To sum up, for RAC with recycled concrete aggregate, the
compressive strength, compressive modulus, flexural strength, and
splitting tensile strength generally show a descending tendency with an
increase in the RA replacement ratio. If 100% recycled concrete aggre­
gate is used for RAC, the reduction in the average compressive strength,
elastic modulus, flexural strength, and the splitting tensile strength is up
to approximately 40%, 40%, 20%, and 40% respectively, compared to
the corresponding NAC. This decreasing tendency can be also observed
Figure 13. Correlation between average relative creep
and RA replacement ratio from previous investigations,
including, recycled concrete aggregate (RCA) with
normal mixing approach (NMA) and two-stage mixing
approach (TSMA) from Tam et al. (Tam and Tam,
2007) (these two mixing approaches will be discussed
in section 3.5.3); RCA from Domingo-Cabo et al.
(Domingo-Cabo et al., 2009); RMA (33% stone, 66%
old concrete, and 1% brick and tiles for 10 mm ag­
gregates; 39% stone, 60% old concrete, and 1% brick
and tiles for 20 mm aggregates) from Kou et al. (Kou
and Poon, 2012);and RCA type I (parent concrete C30)
and RCA type II (parent concrete C80) from He et al.
(He et al., 2020).
B. Wang et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565

Figure 14. Bar charts for the correlation between testing groups and (a) average relative creep and (b) pore size distribution from He et al. (He et al., 2020). NA
stands for natural aggregate; RCA30 and RCA80 stand for parent concrete of C30 and C80, respectively, SRA stands for the addition of shrinkage reducing admixture.
The average relative creep and its variation are calculated by the creep strain of each type of samples at 25 testing dates up to 180 days.

Figure 15. Correlation between average relative shrinkage and RA replacement ratio from previous investigations, including recycled concrete aggregate (RCA)
from Wang et al. (Wang et al., 2020), RMA (33% stone, 66% old concrete, and 1% brick and tiles for 10 mm aggregates; 39% stone, 60% old concrete, and 1% brick
and tiles for 20 mm aggregates) from Kou et al. (Kou and Poon, 2012), RCA under normal mixing and two-stage mixing approaches from Tam et al. (Tam and
Tam, 2007)

Table 4 Similar conclusion can be also found for RAC produced with other type
Solid volume increase in percentage of concrete components due to CO2 treat­ of RAs, e.g. mixed recycled aggregate (MRA). Yang et al. (Yang et al.,
ment according to Zhang et al. (Zhang et al., 2015). 2011) reported that 100% replacement ratio of coarse recycled mixed
Solid components Solid aggregate (50% RCBA and 50% recycled concrete aggregate) led to a
Before carbonation After carbonation volume reduction of 6% of flexural strength compared with the corresponding
increase NAC. Recycled mixed aggregate requires less separation process from
(%)
CDW than other RAs, e.g. recycled concrete aggregate. In the viewpoint
Ca(OH)2 CaCO3 11.5 of reducing energy consumption and emission of harmful substances, it
3CaO•2SiO2•3H2O CaCO3 + SiO2•nH2O 23.1
is worthy to extensively investigate MRA. Clay bricks are widely used for
3CaO•2Al2O3•3CaSO4•32H2O Al2O3•nH2O + CaCO3 + CaSO4•2H2O -44.9
3CaO•Al2O3•CaSO4•18H2O Al2O3•nH2O + CaCO3 + CaSO4•2H2O -31.8 wall elements (e.g. load bearing masonry wall or partition wall) or
2CaO•SiO2 CaCO3 + SiO2•nH2O 92.5 cladding, yielding a large amount of the corresponding CDW. However,
3CaO•SiO2 CaCO3 + SiO2•nH2O 108.7 the investigations on RCBA or RMA and their applications are still very
Total increase ≈ 13% limited. To improve the recycling technology of clay brick and MRA for
further application, mechanical tests (e.g. compression, tensile, and
from RAC with recycled clay brick aggregate in the compressive strength bending tests) of on RAC with RCBA or MRA as RAs are recommended.
(ranging from 56% to 87% for 100% replacement ratio). There are also In this case, their short-term (e.g. compressive, tensile, and flexural
studies of RAC with RCBA focusing on the relationship between other strength) and the long-term performance (e.g. creep and shrinkage)
mechanical properties and RA replacement ratios. For instance, the should be identified. More details on the long-term performance of RAC
flexural strength of RAC with 100% coarse RCBA replacement was 67% are given in Section 3.4.4. The influence of proportion of different
of that of NAC according to Debieb et al. (Debieb and Kenai, 2008). components in MRA (e.g. recycled concrete aggregate, RCBA, bitumen,

12
B. Wang et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565

Figure 16. Correlation between relative compressive strength due to carbonation at 28 days and the coarse RA replacement ratio from previous researches (Li et al.,
2017, Kou et al., 2014, Xuan et al., 2016, Xuan et al., 2016). All CO2 concentrations were around 100%; recycled concrete aggregate was used in all the investigations
except for Kou et al. (Kou et al., 2014) (recycled mortar aggregate).

Table 5
Property changes of RAC due to accelerated carbonation treatment on the RAs throughout the literature.
Reference Properties Carbonation condition Property increase due to carbonation*
CO2 pressure (bar) Duration

(Xuan et al., 2016) Flexural strength 5.0 1 day Up to 28.7%

(Kou et al., 2014) Splitting tensile strength 0.1 Up to 3 days Up to 6.6%
(Xuan et al., 2017) Dry shrinkage at 112 days 0.1 1 day -23.0%
Dry shrinkage at 112 days 5.0 1 day -25.2%
(Tam et al., 2016) Average tensile strength 0.75 to 1.5 30 to 90 min 4.7% to 19.8% (RA replacement ratio: 30%)
0.0% to -7.7% (RA replacement ratio: 100%)
Average flexural strength 0.75 to 1.5 30 to 90 min -11.1% to -2.3% (RA replacement ratio: 30%)
16.3% to 50.8% (RA replacement ratio: 100%)
*
the property increases are calculated based on the average property comparison

natural stone) on these performances of RAC should be also investigated.
3.4.4. Long-term Performance of RAC
3.4.4.7. Freezing-Thawing Resistance. The volume of water expands
approximately 9% when water freezes to ice. In a moist condition,
concrete pores, especially the capillary pores, can be filled with water. If
the pore water freezes, it will generate pressure on the pore surface and a
tensile stress in the concrete at the surrounding. This brings about a
further dilation and rupture of the pore cavity. Freezing-thawing (FT)

Figure 17. Mixing methods of RAC redrawn based on Verian et al. (Verian et al., 2018). NMA for normal mixing approach, TSMA for two-stage mixing approach,
MMA for mortar mixing approach and SEMA for sand enveloped mixing approach. Permission granted.

13
B. Wang et al.
Table 6
The compressive strength of the RAC mixed by NMA and TSMA according to
Tam et al. (Tam et al., 2005)
RA replacement ratio (%) Compressive Improvement due to TSMA (%)
strength (MPa)
NMA TSMA
0 55.7 56.0 0.51
10 59.0 64.5 9.41
15 56.3 61.3 8.88
20 53.7 65.1 21.19
25 52.3 63.1 20.64
30 58.1 66.2 13.94
cycles could have an accumulative effect on the degradation of me­
chanical properties of concrete, eventually causing cracking, and
rupture of the concrete (America’s Cement Manufacturers. Freeze-Thaw
Resistance 2020). According to Verian et al. (Verian et al., 2018), the FT
resistance of RAC was usually inferior to that of NAC. As the porosity of
RAC is higher than that of NAC, more water in the pores of RAC leads to
more rupture of the pore cavity by FT cycles. As a result, the reduction of
mechanical properties of RAC is generally higher than that of NAC. Lotfi
et al. (Lotfi et al., 2014) investigated FT resistance of RAC with 100%
recycled concrete aggregate for both fine and coarse aggregates. The
experimental results showed that after exposure in freezing (− 18 ± 2◦ C)
and thawing (18 ± 2◦ C) with a rate of 2-3 cycles per day for 100 cycles,
the reduction of compressive strength for RAC was 10.4% (with an
initial compressive strength of 56.4 MPa) which was much higher than
that of NAC (i.e. a reduction of 0.6% with an initial compressive strength
of 61.9 MPa) under the same exposure cycles and conditions.
3.4.4.8. Alkali-silica reaction (ASR) resistance. The ASR is defined as a
“chemical reaction that occurs between alkali cations and hydroxyl ions
in the pore solution of hydrated cement paste and certain reactive silica
phases present in the aggregates used in concrete” (Kim and Olek, 2013).
The final product of this chemical reaction, ASR gel, can absorb water
and then expand. This expansion results in the increase of the internal
tensile stresses in concrete. Cracks can be initiated in the concrete as the
tensile stress increases. Since the RAs could originate from ASR-affected
concrete, the ASR gel could be desiccated during the manufactory pro­
cess and the unused reactive silica phases could be exposed during the
crushing process. Therefore, more attentions should be paid to ASR for
RAC study. Generally, there are three different techniques to identify the
ASR resistance of the concrete sample, i.e. concrete prism test, acceler­
ated mortar bar test and concrete microbar test. The details of these
techniques can be found in Table 3. The elongation of the sample in the
length direction will be measured at different time points to present the
ASR expansion. The higher the expansion, the worse is the ASR resis­
tance. Johnson et al. (Johnson and Shehata, 2016) used the concrete
microbar test to evaluate the ASR for RAC. The RA used in this study was
produced from 12-year old concrete blocks that contained spratt, a
siliceous limestone reactive aggregate. Figure 12 presents the ASR
expansion of the samples with spratt aggregates at the age of 28 and 56
days with different replacement ratios of RA. A significant increase in
expansion with an increase in the replacement ratios of the RA revealed
that the ASR resistance of concrete could be reduced as the content of
siliceous reactive RA increase.
3.4.4.9. Creep. Creep is a time-dependent permanent deformation of a
solid material under a constant stress. The concrete creep can be
described by the change in length or volume of concrete under a
compressive stress less than 40% of the concrete strength according to
ASTM C 512-02 (ASTM C512 - 02, 2021). A few previous studies have
investigated the creep behaviour of RAC as shown in Figure 13. The
relative creep in the figure is the ratio of the creep strain of RAC to that
of NAC at the same testing date. The average relative creep and its
14
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565
variation in each study are calculated through all the relative creep at
different testing dates. Obviously, a tendency can be observed that the
relative creep increases as the replacement ratio of RA increases. This is
owing to that RA has higher porosity than that of NA. For example the
water absorption of recycled brick aggregate could be over 15%, while
that of NA was around 1% in the case of Cachim (Cachim, 2009).
However, these results should be taken with cautions as different mixing
process, equipment and types of recycled aggregates were used in
different studies. According to Mehta et al. (Mehta and Monteiro, 2017)
and He et al. (He et al., 2020), the concrete creep behaviour mainly
resulted from the physically absorbed water on C-S-H (calcium silicate
hydrate) and in capillaries. Under external pressure, a large amount of
absorbed water on C-S-H will be lost and the C-S-H will shrink, leading
to a creep strain in the concrete. Compared to the other part of the
matrix, the capillaries are always weaker as they contain air or pore
solution under dry and wet condition, respectively. Therefore, micro­
cracks can be formed in the solid wall of capillaries under the pressure
and further contribute to the creep. The proportional relationship be­
tween porosity and the relative creep strain has been experimentally
proved by He et al. (He et al., 2020) as shown in Figure 14. In Figure 14,
RCA30 and RCA80 denotes that the original concrete, where the recy­
cled concrete aggregates came from, had strength grade of C30 and C80,
respectively. SRA stands for the addition of shrinkage reducing admix­
ture for the reduction of the porosity of the hardened concrete.
Compared with NAC, the increase of average relative creep strain of
RCA30, RCA30-SRA, RCA80, and RCA80-SRA were 49%, 25%, 17%,
and -16%, respectively. This tendency is similar to the total volume of
pores for each type of samples compared with NAC counterpart, i.e. the
increase of pore volumes of RCA30, RCA30-SRA, RCA80, and
RCA80-SRA was 42%, 19%, 12%, and -25%, respectively.
3.4.4.10. Dry shrinkage. Dry shrinkage is defined as the “decrease in
either length or volume of a material resulting from changes in moisture
content or chemical changes” according to American Concrete Institute
(American Concrete Institute 2020). Concrete shrinkage occurs when
the concrete is exposed to environmental humidity lower than 100% and
loses its water. During the shrinkage process, the water in the capillaries
firstly evaporates. The physically absorbed water on calcium silicate
hydrate (C-S-H) is then desorbed and lost through the capillaries. This
process causes a difference of pressure at the surface of C-S-H, defined as
disjoining pressure. Simultaneously, the loss of water in the capillaries
results in a reduction of hydrostatic tension on the walls of capillaries.
Both disjoining pressure and the reduction of hydrostatic tension lead to
an imbalance of internal stress (hydrostatic tension) and external stress
(compaction toward capillaries) on both sides of capillary walls. To
reach a new mechanical equilibrium, capillaries are compacted and the
entire concrete shrinks. Therefore, shrinkage can be strongly affected by
the porosity of the concrete. Usually shrinkage causes an increase of
tensile stress in concrete, which leads to cracking before service. The
concrete shrinkage is described by the length change of concrete, which
can be measured following ASTM C 490 (ASTM C 490 2021). Figure 15
presents the correlation between average relative shrinkage in per­
centage and the coarse RA replacement ratio from previous results. The
average relative shrinkage stands for the ratio of the shrinkage strain of
RAC to that of NAC at the same testing date. Apparently, in most of the
cases, the concrete shrinkage increases as the RA replacement ratio in­
creases, regardless of water cement ratios (w/c). However, Tam et al.
(Tam and Tam, 2007) presented a converse result if two-stage mixing
approach (TSMA) was used. During the TSMA, the total amount of water
will be divided into two portions. One portion will be added and mixed
with aggregates before addition of cement and the other portion will be
added after the addition of cement. The expected reason for the converse
result of Tam et al. (Tam and Tam, 2007) was that during the mixing of
TSMA, pores of the RAs could be closed by the cement slurry. This
reduced the porosity (mostly the amount of capillaries) and in turn
B. Wang et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565

Figure 18. Effect of non-plant-based fiber on the a) splitting tensile

strength (Mohseni et al., 2017, Katkhuda and Shatarat, 2017); b)
flexural strength (Katkhuda and Shatarat, 2017, Alnahhal and
Aljidda, 2018, Gao and Zhang, 2018) and c) compressive strength of
RAC (Katkhuda and Shatarat, 2017, Dong et al., 2017, Chen et al.,
2014, Alnahhal and Aljidda, 2018, Gao and Zhang, 2018, Senaratne
et al., 2016). “rg” stands for the RA replacement ratio and the RA
materials were all recycled concrete aggregate in these studies.

15
B. Wang et al.
eliminated the RAC shrinkage. The detailed introduction of TSMA can be
found in section 3.5.3.
3.5. Improvement of RAC Mechanical Properties
To reduce the porosity and the old mortar layer (in the case of old
concrete and brick aggregate) of RAC and improve the short- and long-
term mechanical properties of RAC (compression, bending, tensile,
creep, and shrinkage), different methods have been considered in
literature (Tam et al.,). In general, these methods could be categorized
into three groups and are summarized here, (1) reduction of RA porosity,
(2) reduction of old mortar layer on RA, and (3) property improvement
without RA modification.
3.5.1. Reduction of RA Porosity
As discussed above, RA and the additional ITZ brought from RA
usually have higher porosity than other components of the concrete.
These pores can absorb water for hydration during the concrete mixing
so as to reduce the hydration degree of cement mortar. Furthermore,
they become voids in the cured concrete without any load carrying ca­
pacity and channels facilitating the penetration of detrimental sub­
stances such as chloride ion and carbon dioxide resulting in the
corrosion of steel rebar.
3.5.1.11. Accelerated Carbonation. The method of accelerated carbon­
ation focuses mainly on the porosity reduction of RAs with attached old
mortar layer (e.g. for recycled concrete aggregates) (Tam et al., 2020,
Liang et al., 2020). Conventionally, the old mortar layer on the RAs
contains high amount of calcium hydroxide, calcium silicate hydrate,
ettringite and monosulphate, which can have carbonation reaction with
CO2 under the presence of water (i.e. physically absorbed water in the
cement mortar, fluid water, and moisture). During the accelerated
carbonation, RAs is usually placed in a CO2 filled chamber. The aggre­
gates will be treated under pressure for several days (e.g. a chamber with
around 100% CO2 concentration with one bar pressure for seven days, Li
et al. (Li et al., 2017)) before casting. Table 4 presents the concrete
components that are capable to react with CO2, the corresponding
carbonated products, and their solid volume increases due to carbon­
ation, as shown by Zhang et al. (Zhang et al., 2015). The total solid
volume of RA with old mortar layer can increase by about 13% after the
carbonation. Due to the volume expansion of the components, the
porosity of the RAs reduces as the pores in the RAs can be partially
occupied or even closed by the carbonation products. Figure 16 shows
the correlation between relative compressive strength of RAC and the
coarse recycled concrete aggregate replacement ratio. The relative
compressive strength of RAC stands for the ratio of RAC compressive
strength with carbonated recycled concrete aggregate to that with
uncarbonated recycled concrete aggregate. For the testing parameters
shown in Figure 16, all CO2 concentrations were around 100%. Recycled
concrete aggregate was used in all the investigations except for Kou et al.
(Kou et al., 2014) (recycled mortar aggregate). The CO2 pressure and the
treating duration are listed in the legend varied between cases, as
indicated in the legends. A tendency can be observed that the relative
compressive strength due to carbonation increases as the RA replace­
ment ratio increases. This indicates that the carbonated RAs contributes
to the improvement of the untreated RAC.
Besides the compressive strength, the accelerated carbonation can
also improve other short- and long-term properties of RAC including
flexural strength, splitting tensile strength, and dry shrinkage. The
detailed improvement can be referred to Table 5. It is worthy to notice
that the property increase due to carbonation is calculated by dividing
the property of RAC with carbonated aggregates to that of RAC without
CO2-treated aggregates. Generally, CO2 treatment can increase the
tensile strength and flexural strength and reduce the dry shrinkage of
RAC. However, exception can be found in the study by Tam et al. (Tam
16
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565
et al., 2016) that the average tensile strength reduced as the recycled
concrete aggregate replacement ratio was 100%. This might be
explained by two reasons: (1) the high variation of the untreated RA due
to its origin and quality, and the insufficient experimental replication;
and (2) the change of water cement ratio of the RAC. For the reason (1),
the variation could be attributed to the different recycled concrete
aggregate origins that could have been mixed and processed in the
recycling plant. In addition, the amount of attached mortar as well as the
porosity and the distribution of cracks in the mortar could also be the
reasons for the high variation. Such variation could be reduced as pores
and cracks could be filled due to the CO2 treatment. In this study, only
three concrete cylinder (diameter 100 mm and height 200 mm) and
three concrete beams (100 mm x 100 mm x 350 mm) were investigated.
Therefore, the tested strength of RAC might be higher than its popula­
tion mean. For reason (2), the reduction of RA porosity due to CO2
treatment could lead to less water absorption in the aggregates.
Compared to 30% replacement ratio, RA with 100% replacement ratio
could absorb more water and result in the reduction of concrete work­
ability. Because the water cement ratio in the study was 0.4 and no
superplasticizer was added in the mixture, the reduction of workability
might lead to the increase of concrete porosity so as to reduce the tensile
strength of the concrete. However, these explanations should be further
validated in future investigations.
3.5.1.12. Biodeposition. Another efficient and novel method for RAC
property improvement is biodeposition. The biodeposition is defined as
microbial carbonate precipitation which can be achieved by ureolytic
bacteria (ASTM C 490 2007) (e.g. S. Pasteurii (Grabiec et al., 2012),
B. Megaterium (Singh et al., 2018) and B. Sphaericus (García-González
et al., 2017)). On the cell surface/cell wall of the bacteria, negatively
charged groups such as carboxyl, phosphoryl, or amino groups domi­
nate, leading to an overall anionic charge (Douglas and Beveridge,
1998). If the bacteria are applied in a salt solution, the free positive
charged metal ions will be attracted and bounded on the bacteria surface
(Eq.2). In the case of RA, the positive charged metal ion is calcium ion.
The negative charged carbonate ion can be generated due to the bac­
terial metabolism (Eq.3) or H2CO3 due to the dissolution of free CO2 in
the air. The bounded calcium ion and the carbonate ion will form cal­
cium carbonate (Eq.4). The initial calcium carbonate will act as a
nucleation site for mineral formation in the case of the existence of
sufficient calcium ion (e.g. by addition of CaCl2) and carbonate ion. The
concrete pores can be filled with the insoluble calcium carbonate. Hence
the mechanical performance of concrete can be improved by the bio­
deposition. The process of biodeposition was described by Grabiec et al.
(Grabiec et al., 2012) and Qian et al. (Chunxiang et al., 2009) as follows:
Sp. cell + Ca2+ →Sp.cell − Ca2+ (2)
(3)
urea
CO(NH2 )2 ̅→ 2NH4 + + CO3 2−
Sp. cell − Ca2+ + CO3 2− → Sp.cell − CaCO3 ↓ (4a)
Where Sp.cell stands for bacteria S. Pasteurii, one kind of ureolytic
bacteria.
In the laboratory demonstration, the biodeposition treatment can be
generally divided into three steps. The first step is the growth step of the
bacteria, in which the liquid culture is poured to the RA samples and
kept for 24 hours for bacteria growth at room condition (20◦ C in tem­
perature and 50% – 65% relative humidity). The second step is the
deposition step, in which deposition medium (a solution normally
consists of urea and calcium salt such as calcium chloride (Grabiec et al.,
2012) or Ca-nitrate (García-González et al., 2017)). The treated samples
will be kept under room condition for several days. The final step is the
final treatment in which the aggregates will be removed from the re­
action solution and oven-dried until the achievement of a stable weight.
The aggregates will be then used for concrete casting.
B. Wang et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565

Figure 19. The Research and Laboratory Building for Life Sciences at Berlin
Humboldt University (Rhoda-Erdmann-Haus), photo by Bo Wang.
Since biodeposition is new for RA modification, most existing studies
(Mehta and Monteiro, 2017, He et al., 2020, Tam and Tam, 2007)
focused only on the reduction of water absorption of the RA. Grabiec
et al. (Grabiec et al., 2012) reported that the recycled concrete aggregate
water absorption had a reduction of around 13.5% to 21.2%, by
applying S. Pasteurii. García-González et al. (García-González et al.,
2017) reported that a reduction in water absorption of recycled mixed
aggregate (with attached mortar content of 2.0 to 3.5 wt.%) was be­
tween 2.8% and 18.0% when using B.Sphaericus. Singh et al. (Singh
et al., 2018) compared the water absorption of bacteria and powdered
nano-silica modified RAs. The type of RA was not specified in the study,
but it had higher initial water absorption (1.4%) than that of NA
(0.65%). The results showed that the water absorption of RA treated by
ureolytic bacteria reduced to 0.9% and 0.5% respectively for 7- and
14-days soaking. This water absorption was lower than that of RA
modified with 3% nanosilica, which was reduced to 1.1% and 0.9%
Table 7
The regression-based model for compressive strength of RAC.
Model Year Expression
( )[
Cabral et al. (Cabral 2010 115
fc = 1 − (0.306 × CRM + 0.164 ×
et al., 2010) 7.2w/c
respectively for 7- and 14-days soaking. Based on the results, Singh et al.
(Singh et al., 2018) concluded that the bacterial treatment could be
more efficient than other treatments on the reduction in water absorp­
tion of RAs. Besides water absorption, the mechanical properties, e.g.
compressive strength and elastic modulus of RAC with bacteria modified
recycled concrete aggregate and RMA (including crushed concrete,
masonry, glass, and wood) were investigated by Wang et al. (Wang et al.,
2016). The results revealed that biodeposition (B. Sphaericus) could have
a significant improvement in the elastic modulus and compressive
strength of the final RAC. Specifically, the elastic modulus increased by
around 27% and 40% for RAC using recycled concrete aggregate and
recycled mixed aggregate, respectively. The compressive strength
increased by about 16% and 10% for RAC using recycled concrete
aggregate and recycled mixed aggregate, respectively.
3.5.1.13. Addition of pozzolana. In civil engineering, pozzolana is a
group of volcanic ashes that are used for mortar or cement. According to
Chung et al. (Chung et al., 2017), the term of pozzolana has been
extended to all siliceous/aluminous materials in finely divided form.
The pozzolana can have pozzolanic reaction in the cement-based com­
posites, mainly with Ca(OH)2 as shown in Eq.4 and 5. Calcium silicate
hydrate (C-S-H) gel is the final product which is primarily responsible
for the strength in concrete. Silica fume (SF), fly ash (FA) and nano-SiO2
(NS) are the three main pozzolana which have been usually investigated
for RA modification throughout the literature. Katz (Katz, 2004) stated
that the 28-day compressive strength of RAC using recycled concrete
aggregates increased by around 15% when the RA was firstly soaked in
SF solution (concentration of 1kg/L) for 24h and dried before concrete
casting. Similar results were reported by González-Fonteboa et al.
(González-Fonteboa and Martínez-Abella, 2008) that the improvement
ratios of the 28-day compressive strength of RAC using recycled concrete
aggregate were around 9% for cylinders and 12% for cubes by adding SF
as equivalent to 8 % SF of cement by mass. In addition to the
compressive strength, they also reported that the average tensile split­
ting strength was improved by approximately 12% at 28 days with the
same amount of SF. Shi et al. (Shi et al., 2018) studied the improvement
in compressive strength of recycled concrete aggregate constituent RAC
through adding SF (pozzolana to cement ratio is 0.63), FA (pozzolana to
cement ratio is 0.76) and NS (pozzolana to cement ratio is 0.13). The
increases of 28-day compressive strength of RAC modified with SF, FA

FRM + 0.195 × CRC + 0.058 × FRC + and NS were 55.2%, 39.4% and 17.6% higher compared with that of
0.344 × CRB − 0.136 × FRB)] RAC without any modification, respectively. Kou et al. (Kou and Poon,
w/c: water cement ratio 2013) investigated the long-term properties (up to ten years) of the
The first letter C,F stand for coarse and fine
outdoor exposed RAC consisting recycled concrete aggregate and fly ash
aggregate respectively; The middle letter R
stands for recycling; the last letter M, C and B as partial replacement of aggregate and cement, respectively. Four
stand for mortar, concrete and brick, replacement ratios of FA to cement in weight, i.e. 0%, 25%, 35% and
respectively. The combined letters represents 55% were considered. The replacement ratios of RA to NA by mass were
the replacement ratio of RA to NA. For 0%, 50%, and 100%. Their results revealed that both compressive
example, CRM denotes the coarse recycled
strengths of RAC and NAC increased after 10 years, however, the
mortar replacement ratio to coarse natural
aggregate in volume. compressive strength of RAC was still lower than that of NAC.
( ) ( )
Lovato et al. (Lovato 2012 0.5 0.67 CRA
fc = 22.5 × × 1− × FRA × Ca2+ + 2OH − + SiO2 →C − S − H (calcium silicate hydrate) (4b)
et al., 2012) w/c 7.44
( m )
1− × [1 − ( − 0.04 × CRA × m)] × Ca2+ + 2OH − + Al2 O3 →C − A − H(calcium aluminate hydrate) (5)
8.61
[1 − (0.008 × FRA × m)]
w/c: water cement ratio
3.5.1.14. Addition of nanoparticles. From a technical point of view, the
CRA/FRA: percentage of coarse/fine aggregate
m: mortar ratio = dry aggregate/cement particle with size which is smaller than 100 nm can be regarded as
Younis et al. (Younis and 2013
[
ρrd,RA LANA nanoparticle (Sanchez and Sobolev, 2010). Since the nanoparticles have
fcu,RA = − 1.245 + 3.22 − much smaller size than cement grain (less than 100 µm), they act as filler
Pilakoutas, 2013) ρrd,NA LARA
in the ITZ, pores, or cracks (especially for those pores/cracks which are
]
WANA
0.99 − 0.13RA × fcu,NA
WARA smaller than cement grain size) and reduce the porosity. During hy­
fcu,RA cube compressive strength of RAC
fcu,NA cube compressive strength of NAC dration process of the cement, the nanoparticles also act as nucleation
ρrd oven dried particle density centres for the crystallisation. As a result, the hydration rate can be
LA Resistance to fragmentation improved and the size of Ca(OH)2 crystal can be reduced (Mukharjee
WA Water absorption and Barai, 2017). Some specific nanoparticles such as carbon nanotube
RA replacement ratio of RA
(CNT) can provide bridge or interlocking effect that they network the

17
B. Wang et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565

Table 8 Table 9
The regression-based model for E-modulus of RAC The regression-based model for stress-strain curve of RAC under axial
Model Year Expression
compression.
( )[ Model Year Expression
Cabral et al. (Cabral 2010 21
Ec = 1 − (0.344 × CRM + 0.150 ×
et al., 2010) w/c0.5 DG/TJ08-2018-2007 ( 2007
FRM + 0.214 × CRC + 0.098 × FRC + 0.438 × DG/TJ08-2018-2007) y =
CRB + 0.102 × FRB)]
w/c: water cement ratio ⎧
2 3
⎨ c1 x + (3 − 2c1 )x + (c1 − 2)x 0 ≤ x < 1
⎪
The first letter C,F stand for coarse and fine
x
aggregate respectively; The middle letter R stands ⎪
⎩ x≥1
c2 (x − 1)2 + x
for recycling; the last letter M, C and B stand for ε
x=
mortar, concrete and brick respectively ε0
( ) ( ) ( σ
Lovato et al. (Lovato 2012 0.5 0.48 CRA y=
Ec = 13.49 × × 1− × 1− fc
et al., 2012) w/c 5.76
) ( c1 = 2.2(0.748r2 − 1.231r +0.975)
FRA m )
× 1− × [1 − ( − 0.04 × CRA × m)] c2 = 0.8(7.6483r +1.142)
5.49 8.67
w/c: water cement ratio ε0 for peak strain
CRA/FRA: percentage of coarse/fine aggregate fc for axial compressive strength
m: mortar ratio = dry aggregate/cement r for recycled concrete aggregate replacement
ratio
Belen et al. (Belén et al., 2010 σc = (k⋅η − η2 )/(1 + (k + 2)η)fcm
2011)
cracks and carry tensile stress released from the cracking in the concrete η = εc /εc1
(Sanchez and Sobolev, 2010). Among all the nanoparticles, nano-silica k = 1.05⋅Ecm ⋅|εc1 |/fcm
For calculation
(Luo et al., 2019, Li et al., 2016, Mukharjee and Barai, 2014, Mukhar­
Ecm = 22⋅(fcm /10)0.3 ⋅φrec
jee and Barai, 2014, Zhang et al., 2015, Shaikh et al., 2018, Hosseini cm
εc1 = 0.7⋅(fcm )0.31 ⋅αrec
et al., 2009, Wang et al., 2019, Mukharjee and Barai, 2014, Meng et al.,
c
Where
2013, Ying et al., 2017, Gao et al., 2020, Lei et al., 2020) is the most φrec
cm = − 0.0020 × %RCA + 1
conventional nanoparticle investigated for RAC as it has not only the αrec
c = 0.0022 × %RCA + 1
aforementioned benefits but also the possibility of formation of pozzo­ %RCA: replacement ratio of recycled concrete
aggregate
lanic reaction in concrete. Other nanoparticles such as nano-calcium
carbonate (or nano-limestone) (Li et al., 2016, Zhang et al., 2015,
Meng et al., 2013, Gao et al., 2020, Li et al., 2017). Nano-titanium di­
oxide (Ying et al., 2017, Moro et al., 2020), nano-alumina (Mohammed method for the reduction of RA porosity. As mentioned before, Ca(OH)2
et al., 2019), nanoclay (Alhamad, 2018), and carbon nanotube (Gao usually concentrates at the ITZ where the porosity is higher than cement
et al., 2020) have been also investigated for RAC application. matrix. Similar to the pozzolana, sodium silicate solution is also able to
Pre-soaking is the commonly method of nanoparticle addition in RAC. have a reaction with Ca(OH)2 at ITZ to generate C-S-H gel. The C-S-H gel
Before the concrete mixing, the nanoparticles are dispersed in water (e. will not only fill the pores in the ITZ but also increase the load carrying
g. nanoparticles in half of the concrete mixing water for 1 min mixing in capacity of the ITZ, which in turn increases the load capacity of the RAC.
the case of Gao et al. (Gao et al., 2020)). The recycled aggregates is then The chemical equation was concluded by Shi et al. (Shi et al., 2016) as
added and mixed with the water before the addition of other concrete follows:
components such as cement, rest of the water, or natural aggregate if
needed. Generally, due to large specific surface area (the surface area Na2 SiO3 + Ca(OH)2 →C − S − H + NaOH (4c)
per unit mass), the nanoparticles are easy to combine with water so that
Zhao et al. (Zhao et al., 2013) pre-coated recycled concrete aggregate
the workability of fresh concrete can be significantly reduced. For
into evenly stirred sodium silicate slurry and soaked them for five to ten
example, Mukharjee et al. (Mukharjee and Barai, 2017) measured the
minutes. The increase in compressive strength of final RAC with treated
slumps of RAC (recycled concrete aggregate as coarse aggregates) with
recycled concrete aggregate was 32.4% to the untreated concrete.
different nano-silica contents, i.e. the replacements ratio of nano-silica
However, the sodium silicate treatment has its own limitation. Because
to cement by mass were 0%, 0.75%, 1.5%, and 3%. Compared to the
the alkali-silica reaction gel is formed by the reaction of alkali with
RAC without nano-silica, the slump reduction of RAC with 0.75%, 1.5%,
reactive silica phases, the incorporation of alkali (e.g. NaOH) may in­
and 3% nano-silica was round 9%, 22%, and 40%, respectively. In
crease the possibility of ASR damage (Shi et al., 2016).
addition to the reduction of workability, the mechanical properties such
as compressive strength (Mukharjee and Barai, 2017, Zhang et al., 2015,
3.5.1.16. Polymer Emulsions. Besides the aforementioned methods, the
Gao et al., 2020, Younis and Muhammed Mustafa, 2018), splitting ten­
treatment with polymer emulsions has been reported as another effec­
sile strength (Mukharjee and Barai, 2017, Zhang et al., 2015, Gao et al.,
tive method to reduce the porosity of RAs. Conventionally, the polymer
2020), and bending strength (Mukharjee and Barai, 2017, Zhang et al.,
such as polyvinyl alcohol (Lei et al., 2020), polydiorganosiloxanes
2015) can be still improved by the addition of nanoparticles. Gao et al.
(siloxane) and alkylalkoxysilanes (silane) can be used. These materials
(Gao et al., 2020) applied nano-calcium carbonate and multi-walled
have been widely used as water-repellent protection for post-treatment
carbon nanotube in RAC, in which 70 wt.% of coarse aggregate was
of concrete and masonry, especially against the damage from de-icing
replaced by RA. The RA consisted of 55 wt.% recycled clay brick
salt or freeze-thaw due to water penetration (Spaeth and Djerbi Teg­
aggregate and 45 wt.% recycled concrete/mortar aggregates. As the
guer, 2013). During the polymer emulsion, polymer is usually added in
amount of nano-calcium carbonate increased from 0 wt.% to 2 wt.% of
water to prepare a polymer solution. The aggregate is then soaked in the
the cement, the 28 days compressive strength of the RAC increased from
solution for a certain time, e.g. 5 min soaking in silane or siloxane in the
28.5 MPa to 36.6 MPa, the splitting tensile strength increased from 2.18
case of Spaeth et al. (Spaeth and Djerbi Tegguer, 2013). The samples will
MPa to 2.24 MPa. With the addition of 0.1 wt% of the carbon nanotube,
be used for application after they are dried. When polymer emulsion is
the concrete compressive strength and splitting tensile strength signifi­
applied to RAs, the pores and cracks in the RAs especially in the attached
cantly increased by around 40% and 10%, respectively.
mortar and the ITZ can be filled up by the polymer molecules and the
aggregate surfaces can be sealed (Shi et al., 2016). Spaeth et al. (Spaeth
3.5.1.15. Sodium Silicate (Na2SiO3, SS). The sodium silicate is another

18
B. Wang et al.
and Djerbi Tegguer, 2013) applied polymer emulsion for recycled con­
crete aggregates (RCA). After the treatment, a polymeric film was
formed in pore network of RCA, which significantly reduced the porosity
and permeability of the concrete. For example, the water absorption of
recycled concrete aggregate treated by 5% Octyl triethoxy silane was
around 1.8% compared with 4.5% of the untreated recycled concrete
aggregate. Kou et al. (Kou and Poon, 2010) soaked recycled concrete
aggregate in polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) solution with different concen­
trations (i.e. 6%, 8%, 10%, and 12%) for 24 hours with vacuum pumps
under pressure of 920 mbar. For modified recycled concrete aggregates
in 10% PVA (the optimum concentration), the water absorption of
recycled concrete aggregates with particle size of 20 mm and 10 mm was
reduced by approximately 74.0% and 69.3%, respectively. The water
absorption was measured by air drying under a condition of the tem­
perature at 23 ± 1◦ C and relative humidity at 65 ± 2 % for two days. The
compressive strength of RAC with treated aggregate slightly increased
by around 5.6% and the splitting tensile strength increased by 1.1% at
28 days compared to those of RAC with untreated aggregates.
3.5.2. Reduction of Old Mortar Layer
Among all RAs, recycled concrete aggregate is the most investigated
and utilized aggregate materials. The old mortar attached on recycled
concrete aggregate is usually the weak point of the recycled concrete
aggregate since it has higher porosity and more cracks than NA. Some
treatment methods focus on reducing thickness of old mortar layer so as
to improve performance of RAC.
3.5.2.17. Acid Treatment. Acid treatment is the most conventional
approach to reduce or remove the old mortar layer as the alkaline mortar
can be dissolved in acid. Throughout the literature, the strong acid such
as hydrochloric acid (HCl) and sulfuric acid (H2SO4), the nitric acid
(HNO3) as well as the weak acid (e.g. acetic acid (CH3COOH)) were
applied for this treatment. Saravanakumar et al. (Saravanakumar et al.,
2016) pre-soaked recycled concrete aggregate in HCl, H2SO4 and HNO3
solutions at room temperature for 24 hours. All the acidic solutions had a
normality of 0.1. In acid solution, the normality can be defined as the
molar concentration of the acid in the solution multiply the number of
acidic H atoms in the acid. For example, the number of acidic H atoms in
HCl, and H2SO4 are 1 and 2, respectively. Although the compressive
strength of treated RAC was lower than that of NAC, a significant in­
crease was recorded when they were compared with untreated RAC. The
increases of compressive strength at 28 days for HCl, HNO3, and H2SO4
treatment were 34.6%, 25.3%, and 17.6% for 100% RA replacement
ratio, respectively. Similar results were reported by Tam et al. (Tam
et al., 2007). They pre-treated the recycled concrete aggregate in acid (i.
e. HCl, H2SO4, and H3PO4) with concentration of 0.1 mole at room
temperature for 24 hours. The RA replacement ratios to NA were 5%,
10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, and 30% The compressive strength of RAC with
recycled concrete aggregate treated by HCl, H2SO4, and H3PO4
increased by up to 10.1%, 12.8%, and 14.0%, respectively. The change
of flexural strength was also recorded in the same study that the increase
of the flexural strength of RAC with recycled concrete aggregates treated
by HCl, H2SO4, and H3PO4 was up to 4.4%, 5.1%, and 18.6%, respec­
tively. Considering environmental impact and cost efficiency, Wang
et al. (Wang et al., 2017) applied an environmental-friendly approach
for recycled concrete aggregate treatment by using acetic acid.
Compared to other strong acids (e.g. HCl and H2SO4), acetic acid is
milder, less dangerous for operating and economical. It is also clean that
no detrimental ions such as Cl− will be generated. Chloride ion (Cl− ) can
lead to deterioration of the concrete structure (e.g. corrosion of steel
rebar in concrete). The acetic acid can be regenerated through calcium
leaching by applying CO2 in the solution. It is reported from Wang et al.
(Wang et al., 2017) that the water absorption of the recycled concrete
aggregate reduced by around 9% – 19% after the treatment with
different acetic acid concentration (1%, 3%, and 5%) and reaction time
19
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565
(one, three and five days). Compared to RAC with untreated aggregates,
the RAC with acetic acid treated aggregates exhibited higher compres­
sive strength. Especially for samples treated with 3% acetic acid, the
compressive strength reached around 52 MPa which was 25% higher
than that of untreated RAC samples (around 42 MPa) and only slightly
lower than that of NAC (around 55 MPa). Kazmi et al. (Kazmi et al.,
2020) combined acetic acid (0.3%) treatment with rubbing and
carbonation on recycled concrete aggregates. Compared to untreated
RAC, the RAC with combined treatment presented 17% less in the
reduction of weight loss after 66 freeze-thaw cycles (1 hour with +4◦ C
and 4 hours with -18◦ C).
3.5.2.18. Thermal Treatment. Another approach to reduce the old
mortar layer is thermal treatment. This treatment is usually conducted
during the crushing process of RA and can be applied for both concrete
rubbles and masonry debris. The principle of the thermal treatment is
the dehydration of old cement stone, which leads to the separation of old
mortar layer from the aggregate particles. Larbi et al. (Larbi et al., 2000)
reported that heating the recycled concrete aggregate to maximum
800◦ C for 2 hours could remove most of the attached old mortar and the
remained attached mortar amount was only 5% of the RA samples in
weight. It should be noted that old mortar accounts for 55% of the un­
treated RA. Although this treatment has a high energy consumption, the
energy needed could be generated from the combustible fractions from
the CDW according to Mulder et al. (Mulder et al., 2007). The concept of
“Close Cycle Construction” could be realized. Akbarnezhad et al.
(Akbarnezhad et al., 2011) revealed that using microwave-aided tech­
nique could also remove the old mortar. Since the attenuation factor (i.e.
a large attenuation factor means that a microwave beam is hard to be
penetrated in a material and the beam energy can be easily obtained by
the material) of mortar is significantly higher than natural aggregate,
microwave could be used to heat aggregates enclosed by old mortar for
further separation. For example, with the microwave frequency of 10
GHz, the attenuation factor of saturated mortar (water/cement/river
sand ratio in weight was 1:2.22:5.61) was around 20 neper/m, which
was approximately four times to that of coarse aggregates (Rhim and
Buyukozturk,). As a result, mortar could be heat up faster than NA,
leading to a significant difference of thermal stresses in the mortar
(especially at the ITZ) and aggregates. As a result, the attached mortar
could be separated from the aggregates. Akbarnezhad et al. (Akbar­
nezhad et al., 2011) also compared the 24-hours water absorption of
recycled concrete aggregate treated by microwave, conventional heat­
ing, and sulfuric acid with acid concentration of 0.1 M, 0.2 M, and 1 M (1
M = 1 mol/L). The results showed that the water absorption of recycled
aggregate concrete reduced from 4.2% to 2.8% after one-minute mi­
crowave treatment. This reduction was more significant than that of
recycled concrete aggregate after the conventional heating for two hours
(i.e. the water absorption was 4.1% and 3.8% at 300◦ C and 500◦ C,
respectively) and that of the recycled concrete aggregate treated in acid
solutions (i.e. the water absorption was between 3.4% and 4.1% after
one or two hours treatment). Exception could be found only for 1 M acid
for two hours treatment that the water absorption was 1.6%. The mi­
crowave treated recycled concrete aggregate was also applied in RAC by
Akbarnezhad et al. (Akbarnezhad et al., 2011). Compared to the RAC
with untreated aggregates, the compressive strength of RAC with 100%
microwave treated recycled concrete aggregate was around 30% higher
than that of RAC using untreated aggregates.
3.5.3. Property Improvement without RA Modification
Besides the aforementioned treatments, there are also other treat­
ments that can enhance the performance of RAC without RA modifica­
tion, e.g. improved mixing approaches and the addition of fibre
reinforcement.
3.5.3.19. The mixing approach. Throughout the authors’ literature
B. Wang et al.
research, three mixing approaches were reported to have a positive in­
fluence on RAC performance, i.e. the two-stage mixing approach
(TSMA), mortar mixing approach (MMA) and sand enveloped mixing
approach (SEMA). The progresses of all these three methods were
summarized and illustrated by Verian et al. (Verian et al., 2018)
(Figure 17). Among them, TSMA was firstly introduced by Tam et al.
(Tam et al., 2005) in 2005. Different from the ordinary normal mixing
approach (NMA), the mixing water was divided into two portions. The
compressive strength of the RAC with different recycled concrete
aggregate replacement ratio (i.e. 0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, 20%, 25%, and
30%) mixed by NMA and TSMA from Tam et al. (Tam et al., 2005) are
presented in Table 6. Compared to the NMA, the TSMA contributed to a
significant strength enhancement (up to 20%) of the RAC compressive
strength. It can be also concluded that the TSMA only had an influence of
RA since almost no strength improvement (increase of 0.51%) could be
found in NAC due to TSMA. These results were attributed by the gen­
eration of a thin cement slurry on the surface of recycled concrete
aggregate during the first water addition. As a result, the pores and
cracks of the recycled concrete aggregates and the attached mortar could
be covered, and eventually the compressive strength of RAC increased.
MMA and SEMA were both introduced by Liang et al. (Liang Y-c et al.,
2015). In both MMA and SEMA, mixing fine aggregates with water and
cement in the first place forms a mixture of cement paste and mortar so
that the pores and cracks of the recycled concrete aggregate could be
filled or covered premixed cement or mortar slurry rather than water.
Among these three mixing approaches, Liang et al. (Liang Y-c et al.,
2015) concluded that the SEMA is the most effective way to improve the
compressive strength of RAC. Specifically, the compressive strength of
concrete using SEMA was approximately 20% and 30% higher than that
of concrete using MMA and TSMA, respectively. Compared to the
improvement methods such as the reduction of old mortar layer, the
mixing approach was considered as more practical methods by Bai et al.
(Bai et al., 2020) as they are easy to be conducted and have relatively
low costs.
3.5.3.20. Addition of Fibre Reinforcement. Some researchers have
applied short monofilament fibres in RAC to overcome the brittle failure
mode of the RAC and increase its tensile and flexural strength as well.
The main role of those fibres in the concrete is to control the cracks
opening and propagation that was achieved by the “fibre bridge effect”
(Brandt, 2008). The “fibre bridge effect” occurs when a crack is initiated
in the concrete and a fibre connects both sides of the crack like a bridge.
The tensile stress released from the cracking concrete can still be carried
by the fibre. Therefore, the brittle failure of concrete can be changed,
and the crack width can be limited. As a result, the penetration of
detrimental chemicals (e.g. CO2 or chloride ion) can be limited and
hence the corrosion resistance of the steel reinforced concrete and the
freezing-thawing resistance can be increased. Several researchers have
already investigated incorporating RAC with monofilament fibres, e.g.
steel fibre, polypropylene fibre, and basalt fibre. Their results revealed
that the fibre incorporation increased the splitting tensile strength
(Figure 18(a)) (Mohseni et al., 2017, Katkhuda and Shatarat, 2017) and
flexural strength (Figure 18(b)) significantly. Katkhuda et al. (Katkhuda
and Shatarat, 2017) applied chopped basalt fibre in RAC with 20%
replacement ratio recycled concrete aggregate. As the fibre content in
weight percentage of cement increased from 0% to 1.5%, the increase of
splitting tensile strength and flexural strength was 40% and 61%
respectively. The effects of fibre addition on compressive strength,
however, did not reach agreement according to previous relevant
studies. Some researchers reported that the compressive strength
increased (Mohseni et al., 2017, Dong et al., 2017, Aslani and Kelin,
2018), while other had the opposite conclusion (Chen et al., 2014).
Besides, some reported that the addition of fibre had no significant effect
on compressive strength (Alnahhal and Aljidda, 2018, Gao and Zhang,
2018) (Figure 18(c)). Katkhuda et al. (Katkhuda and Shatarat, 2017)
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Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565
also applied the basalt fibre reinforced RAC under compression in the
same study. As fibre content increased from 0% to 1%, the relative
compressive strength increased from 100% to 109%. However, it
reduced to 106% when 1.5% basalt fibre was used. There are two rea­
sons for the different effect of fibres to concrete compressive strength,
(1) the fibre orientation and (2) reduction of concrete workability. For
(1), as mentioned above, fibre is able to carry the tensile stress released
from the crack, which is in the direction of fibre. Under compression, an
expansion in the direction perpendicular to compressive stress will be
generated in concrete, which can be restricted by the fibre in the same
direction. Therefore, the effect of compressive strength improvement
depends strongly on the amount of fibres that are not parallel to the
stress direction. For (2), the incorporation of fibres could reduce work­
ability of fresh RAC, especially when the fibres have high aspect ratio
(Katkhuda and Shatarat, 2017, Aslani and Kelin, 2018, Ortiz et al.,
2017). Fibres brings additional surface area that should be coated by
concrete mortar and simultaneously reduce the mortar fraction in the
concrete. If fibre content increases until concrete mortar is insufficient,
the void content in the concrete will also increase, which can reduce the
compressive strength. Therefore, a proper fibre content is always needed
for fibre reinforced recycled aggregate concrete (FRAC), especially for
serving as compressive element. In addition, hybrid fibres in RAC have
been also investigated. Lei et al. (Lei et al., 2020) combined poly­
propylene (PP) and glass fibre in RAC with recycled concrete aggregates.
The compressive strength of RAC with 70% PP fibre and 30% glass fibre
(fibre length 19mm, total fibre content was 0.25 wt.% of the cement)
was 39 MPa which was comparable to the RAC without fibre.
Although there were several investigations on monofilament fibre
reinforced RAC, most of fibres were man-made fibres. Compared to the
man-made fibres, the plant-based natural fibres have benefits in envi­
ronmental impact and they were proved to have appropriate and com­
parable enhancement in NAC, e.g. coir fibre (Yan and Chouw, 2013, Yan
and Chouw, 2013, Yan and Chouw, 2013, Yan and Chouw, 2014, Yan
et al., 2014), sisal fibre (Nilsson, 1975, Baluch et al., 1987, Rahuman
and Yeshika, 2015), jute fibre (Ramaswamy et al., 1983, Islam and
Ahmed, 2018), bamboo fibre (Ramaswamy et al., 1983, Ahmad et al.,
2014, Awoyera and Babalola, 2015) and flax fibre (Page et al., 2017).
However, the investigation on plant-based natural fibres for RAC is
limited. Shakeeb et al. (SS et al., 2017) applied coir fibres in RAC. Their
results showed that the RAC using coir fibres weighing 1% of cement and
20% of RA replacement ratio showed the highest compressive strength
(34.8 MPa) with a certain water cement ratio of 0.5. The compressive
strength of 1% coir fibre with 0%, 10%, 30%, and 40% recycled concrete
aggregate was 28.4 MPa, 32.2 MPa, 31.5 MPa, and 30.4 MPa,
respectively.
The limitation of application of plant-based natural fibres lies on that
they are readily degraded in the alkaline concrete pore solution or
mineralized to become brittle. In consideration of such limitation and
great concern of environmental protection and sustainability, more
comprehensive investigations on various types of plant-based fibre
reinforced RAC should be conducted including their micro- and macro-
scale properties as well as long term durability. With the comprehensive
knowledge, the application of plant-based natural monofilament FRAC
can be promoted.
4. Models for Strength Prediction
To ensure the safety and cost efficiency of design for the practical
application, several models have been generated to predict the perfor­
mance of RAC. Since uniaxial compressive strength is one of the most
essential properties of concrete, most of the models focused only on the
elastic modulus, compressive strength, or the stress-strain behaviour of
concrete under compression.
B. Wang et al.
4.1. Regression-based Models
Regression is one of the most utilized models for prediction as it is
transparent for the production process of prediction and the optimal
weights for all the variables can be easily acquired. However, the
regression is normally suitable for linear relationships of independent
variables. The hand-crafted nonlinearity or interaction should be
explicitly given as input (Molnar, 2020). Cabral et al. (Cabral et al.,
2010) generated a model following Abram’s Law through regression to
describe the compressive strength and elastic modulus of RAC. This
model considered different RA materials (i.e. recycled mortar aggregate,
recycled concrete aggregate and recycled brick aggregate) for both
coarse and fine aggregate as well as their combined effects. Lovato et al.
(Lovato et al., 2012) developed a model for not only compressive
strength and E-modulus of RAC but also the water absorption and
carbonation depth. Based on the response surface methodology (RSM)
and analysis of variance (ANOVA), it has been concluded that if the
replacement ratio of fine and coarse natural aggregate was less than
50%, RAC was in technical, economical, and ecological point of view
feasible. The prediction model from Younis et al. (Younis and Pilakou­
tas, 2013) was generated by the multi-linear regression analysis. This
model showed better correlation with the previous experimental results,
which may be due to that additional data, e.g. the resistance to frag­
mentation (Los Angeles test) and water absorption were involved. The
expressions of the above-mentioned models are summarized in Table 7
for compression and Table 8 for E-modules.
Belen et al. (Belén et al., 2011) developed a stress-strain model for
recycled concrete aggregate based on the widely utilized model for
concrete from Eurocode 2, EN 1992-1-1: 2004 (Fingerloos et al., 2012).
The model was proved accurate for the prediction of the stress-strain
curve of both recycled concrete aggregate and conventional concrete.
Besides, the Chinese technical code (DG/TJ08-2018-2007
(DG/TJ08-2018-2007)) also presents an analytical model. The
above-mentioned models for the entire stress-strain curve are presented
in Table 9.
4.2. Modelling through Artificial Intelligence
Since last three decades, a novel modelling concept, the artificial
intelligence (AI), was introduced into civil engineering. Recently it has
been applied in the prediction of RAC performance. Artificial Neural
Network (ANN) and the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS)
are two major methods for AI modelling. Compared to regression-based
models, the AI modelling have the ability to deal with non-linear rela­
tionship and learn the hidden relationship without given any fixed
relationship or function (Mahanta, 2020). Khademi et al. (Khademi
et al., 2016) compared the strength prediction among ANN, ANFIS and
Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) based on the 28 days compressive
strength of 257 RAC samples. The results revealed that ANN and ANFIS
had higher accuracy than MLR. The coefficient of determination of MLR
was 0.6085 which was lower than that of ANN (0.9185) and ANFIS
(0.9075). This could be probably due to the nonlinear relationship be­
tween the variables. Even though, MLR was still recommended to be
used for the preliminary mix design since the regression-based methods
can be readily used and require less data than AI methods (Deshpande
et al., 2014). The M5’ algorithm (Behnood et al., 2015), as another AI
technique, was also applied in prediction of RAC performance. The
principle of this algorithm is to split the input space with different
regression models to minimizing the errors of the prediction. Behnood
et al. (Behnood et al., 2015) compared M5’ algorithm method and
several regression-based methods with 363 testing results (91 from them
were for the model verification) for the prediction of elastic modulus of
RAC. The coefficient of determination of M5’algorithm was 0.837 which
was higher than that of regression-based methods (between 0.467 and
0.536). Duan et al. (Duan et al., 2020) proposed a new model, the
ICA-XGBoost model, based on meta-heuristic search of sociopolitical
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Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565
algorithm and XGBoost. A total of 209 results (80% results for training
and 20% for testing) were considered. Their results showed that the
coefficient of determination of ICA-XGBoost was 0.983, which was
higher than that of ANN with 0.960 and ANFIS with 0.940.
However, it is worth noticing that the AI methods require a large
amount of experimental data for training and testing to achieve high
accuracy of the prediction (Khademi et al., 2016, Duan and Poon, 2014,
Duan et al., 2013, Duan et al., 2013, Topçu and Sarıdemir, 2008). Be­
sides, the AI prediction process is still a black box with little scientific
justification that the prediction process or the relation between variables
is not transparent.
5. Application of RA and RAC in Practice
5.1. Practical Application
The main application field of RA or RAC is non-structural application
due to the low mechanical load capacity and uncertainty derived from
the parent construction of RA. The commercial RA for example in Ger­
many was generally used as filling material, substratum improvement
for road (Bötel, 2019), pavement, or gabions (Broere, 2017). In
Australia, RA and RAC were also widely a used for path, footpath,
parking bay according to Kotrayothar (Kotrayothar,).
In order to establish a sustainable built environment, many countries
encourage using RAC (mostly with recycled concrete aggregate) for the
structural application. Among them, Switzerland is at the forefront of
the RAC structural application (Brugger, 2020). One example is the
e-science lab from ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in
Zurich, Zurich). This six-story construction, completed in 2007 with a
total floor area of 11,655 m2, was mostly constructed by recycled con­
crete (up to 90% of the concrete) (Staller and Tisch, 2020, ETH HIT
e-science Lab Zurich, Switzerland 2020). Another example is the
extension structure of a school building (built in 2007) in Hirzenbach,
Zurich, the concrete of which was fully recycled concrete (Schwebendes
Gebäude aus Recyclingbeton (Floating Building from Recycled Con­
crete, translation to English by the authors) 2020). In 2002, a pilot
public structure, the “Im Birch” school, was established in Zurich, which
contained 80% of recycled concrete. The successful implementation of
this pilot project led to the obligation that at least 25% recycled concrete
aggregate should be utilized for all public buildings, as specified by the
government of Switzerland (European Commission 2020). Zurich is
even encouraging to use 25% RMA that could contain clay bricks, tiles,
calcium silicate bricks or non-floating aerated concrete besides recycled
concrete aggregate. Similar to Switzerland, Germany also has a high
recycling ratio on CDW, e.g. around 84% (72.2 million tonnes) from the
total 86.0 million tonnes of building and road rubble as well as the
construction waste was produced to recycled construction materials in
2016. However, from this 72.2 million tonnes recycled materials, only
21.0% was used as aggregates in the asphalt and concrete production
(Bundsverband Baustoffe-Steine und Erden e.V 2016). According to
Stürmer et al. (Stürmer and Kulle, 2017), a dozen of buildings and
constructions that have been fully or partly built by RAC in Germany are
listed in Table 10. Among all the applications, the Research and Labo­
ratory Building for Life Sciences at Berlin Humboldt University was
regarded as the most famous pilot construction in Germany due to a
large amount of RAC (3800 m3) (Bodamer Faber Architekten BDA
PartGmbB 2019). After the successful application of RAC in this build­
ing, Berlin government is in consideration for the obligation of using
recycling concrete for future public construction project (Brugger,
2020).
Besides Switzerland and Germany, there have been also some other
RAC structural applications around the world. For example in Japan,
small part of the “across Shin-Osaka” (building period: 04.1998-
02.2000) (Takenaka Corporation 2019) about 100 m2 of the first floor
were cast by RAC. Other applications have been reported by Japan
Construction Federation (Japan Construction Federation 2019) that in
B. Wang et al. Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565

Table 10
Structural application of RAC in German history based on Stürmer et al. (Stürmer and Kulle, 2017)
Construction Period Place RAC Application

1994-1995 Osnabrück Name Administration Building of German Federal Foundation for Environment
Comment —————
1998-2000 Darmstadt Name Waldspirale
Comment 12000 m3 of RAC were used (Hundertwasser-Haus )
09.2009-12.2009 Ludwigshafen am Rhein Name Haus 3
Comment First building construction completely from RAC
02.2010-later 2010 Malsch bei Heidelberg Name Administration Building of SAD mbH
Comment
03.2010-later 2010 Ludwigshafen-Friesenheim Name
Comment The first single family house in Germany that is made of RAC
04.2010-later 2010 Ludwigshafen-Gartenstadt Name
Comment Single family house
06.2010-01.2012 Stuttgart Name
Comment Multi-story residential building
10.2010-N/A Heilbronn Name WTZ I
Comment
11.2010-N/A Heilbronn Name WTZ II
Comment
11.2010-06.2011 Winnenden Name
Comment Residential complex
08.2012-08.2014 Tübingen Name Server Centre of Tübingen University and University Hospital
Comment 90% of the total concrete volume is made of RAC (Hörsch, 2019)
06.2014-09.2014 Berlin Name Research and Laboratory Building for Life Sciences at Berlin Humboldt University (Figure 19)
Comment RAC amount is 3800 m3 (Bodamer Faber Architekten BDA PartGmbB 2019)
10.2014-03.2015 Weiheim an der Teck Name
Comment Multi-story residential building
2014-08.2015 Heilbronn Name WTZ III
Comment First high-rise building with RAC (64m)
07.2015-12.2016 Stuttgart Name Pegasus-Bau
Comment Laboratory building in Stuttgart university
04.2015-07.2016 Mannheim Neuostheim Name Eastsite VIII
Comment Office building
08.2015-09.2017 Ludwigsburg Name District administration
Comment
02.2016-03.2018 Tübingen Name Technical Town Hall (Technisches Rathaus)
Comment
02.2016-04.2017 Mainz Name Center of environmental education
Comment
06.2016-11.2016 Kirchheim unter Teck Name Competence center
Comment
04.2017-04.2018 Würzburg Name Environmental station
Comment First project with RAC in Bayern

the Konan-ku of Yokohama, 1000 m3 RAC were used for a multi-story
residential house and in the Bunkyo-ku of Tokyo, about 120 m3 were
used for an office building. In China, 100% of the demolition was reused
in the new construction of International Aviation Service Centre of
Shanghai: Project X1 (China Construction Eighth Engineering Bureau
Co., LTD). Approximately 40,000 m3 RAC was produced in-situ and
among them about 11,000 m3 was applied for the basement structure.
5.2. Challenges in Practical Application
Despite of the aforementioned applications, the practical application
of RAC is still limited. Except for the inferior mechanical properties of
RAC, the limitation lies primarily on the RA production process, i.e. the
recycling of CDW or the CDW management. As a country with the
highest CDW generation (around 2360 million tonnes in 2018 as shown
in Figure 1), China is facing great challenge concerning the CDW man­
agement. Therefore, China is considered as an example to describe the
practical application challenges in this study. To fight against the
environmental issues caused by the CDW, efforts have been made by the
Chinese government to manage the CDW. In 2003, China has enforced
its first law of Urban Construction Waste and Construction Dregs Regulation
(Aslam et al., 2020), in which CDW and the related activities were
defined. Up to date, number of regulations and laws have been enacted
and enforced, e.g. Urban Construction Waste Management Regulation and
Solid Waste Pollution Prevention Law in 2005 focusing on the CDW
treatment (Aslam et al., 2020). However, the recycling of CDW in China
is still relatively low. According to Zhang et al. (Zhang and Tan, 2020),
only around 10% CDW were recycled or reused in China. The CDW
recycling in China is mainly hindered by the following: technical as­
pects, economic aspects, political aspects, and social aspects. The tech­
nical aspects are the lack of background information of CDW (e.g. the
origin and amount of CDW) (Yuan, 2017, Wu et al., 2019, Ma et al.,
2020), the constraints of the project and construction site (Wu et al.,
2019, Bao et al., 2020), the insufficient support from off-site recycling
(Bao et al., 2020), and the lack of advanced technology in recycling (Chi
et al., 2020). The economic aspects are the lack of interaction and co­
ordination in the CDW recycling and supply chain (e.g. no platform for
trading and information-sharing of recycled products) (Aslam et al.,
2020, Ma et al., 2020, Bao et al., 2020) and underdevelopment of
recycling market (Ma et al., 2020, Chi et al., 2020). The political aspects
are the lack of audit and supervision from authorities (Aslam et al.,
2020, Chi et al., 2020, Lu and Yuan, 2012) and insufficient incentives for
recycling (Aslam et al., 2020, Ma et al., 2020, Liu et al., 2020). The social
aspects are public awareness (Chi et al., 2020), acceptance of the
products from recycled materials by public. For example, Ma et al. (Ma
et al., 2020) visited 10 different recycling plants and interviewed 25
industry practitioners in China and then listed the challenges in the
Chinese CDW management, e.g. no tracking and accurate estimation of
the CDW (where it comes from, how much is generated, and where it
will be used), insufficient waste minimisation design, unregulated
landfill practices with high cost, lack of financial or political support,
and lack of cooperation from the government for the CDW management.

22
B. Wang et al.
Table 11
echnology readiness levels (TRL) (European Commission 2021).
Level Description
1 “Basic principles observed”
2 “Technology concept formulated”
3 “Experimental proof of concept”
4 “Technology validated in lab”
5 “Technology validated in relevant environment (industrially relevant
environment in the case of key enabling technologies)”
6 “Technology demonstrated in relevant environment (industrially relevant
environment in the case of key enabling technologies)”
7 “System prototype demonstration in operational environment”
8 “System complete and qualified”
9 “Actual system proven in operational environment (competitive
manufacturing in the case of key enabling technologies; or in space)”
Among all the aspects, the most essential one for CDW reduction is
economic viability (Wu et al., 2017). The economic viability consists of
effective CDW management to reduce the cost and bring benefits to a
company, and the attractive policies for the fee of CDW discharging.
To overcome the inefficiency of CDW management, a number of
suggestions were identified in previous research. Bao et al. (Bao et al.,
2020) suggested to develop customized recycled equipment and more
off-site recycling. A platform of recycled products should be established
to exchange the information and develop the recycling market. Kabirifar
et al. (Kabirifar et al., 2020) pointed out that the CDW management
hierarchy (reduce, reuse, and recycle) should be followed. The sus­
tainability of CDW, attitudes from CDW stakeholders, as well as the
appropriate CDW management tools should be identified. Hao et al.
(Hao et al., 2019) developed a system dynamics model considering the
interrelationships between waste generation, disposal, reduction and
economic performance. Their study revealed that the improvement of
sorting, restriction of illegal dumping, subsidy on recycling, and
increasing the landfill fee could be the most effective strategies for the
CDW reduction. Except for the landfill fee or tax increase, Duan et al.
(Duan et al., 2015) found out that the Green Product Label and tech­
nological standards were highly related to the CDW recycling industry
development after statistical analysis a sample of 52 Chinese cities. The
traditional principle in CDW waste management is the “3R” principle, i.
e. reduce, reuse, and recycle (Huang et al., 2018). To further promote
the CDW management effectiveness (e.g. in Hongkong), Wu et al. (Wu
et al., 2020) suggested the implementation of “3R+I” principle, where
incineration could be considered for the sufficient utilisation of non-­
inert components (e.g. wood and plastic). The suggestion from Bao et al.
(Bao et al., 2019) focused on the procurement models in CDW man­
agement. The traditional procurement model, the Public Private Part­
nership, has weaknesses such as long negotiation periods, insufficient
transparency, and uneven allocation of risk and return. Based on the
case study on the CDW recycling industry in Suzhou, China, it was found
that an operation on a general concession framework (e.g. a concession
agreement) between public and private sector could be beneficial for the
CDW management.
5.3. RA application towards EU Green Policy
In the recent decade, the European Commission has granted a lot of
projects related to CDW, RA, or RAC, as shown in Table S1. The main
results or objectives of the listed projects were waste management (e.g.
ZEROWIN (CORDIS EU research results 2021), IRCOW (CORDIS EU
research results 2021), PRODUCTINFOX (CORDIS EU research results
2021), HISER (CORDIS EU research results 2021), FuRIC (CORDIS EU
research results 2021), and TRACK4REUSE (CORDIS EU research results
2021)), ecological and economic assessment methods on waste and
waste recycling (e.g. SUPERBUILDINGS (CORDIS EU research results
2021), IRCOW (CORDIS EU research results 2021), C2CA (CORDIS EU
research results 2021), BABM (CORDIS EU research results 2021), and
FuRIC (CORDIS EU research results 2021)), and the material
23
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565
identification as well as the technology development towards the
application of material from CDW (e.g. C2CA (CORDIS EU research re­
sults 2021), EnCoRe (CORDIS EU research results 2021), ECO-CEMENT
(CORDIS EU research results 2021), RE4 (CORDIS EU research results
2021), GREEN INSTRUCT (CORDIS EU research results 2021), TRAC
(CORDIS EU research results 2021), and CodeLEGO (CORDIS EU
research results 2021)). The TRL in Table S1 refers to the technology
readiness level (European Commission 2021) at which the projects
should target. The detailed description of TRL can be found in Table 10.
Most of these research outcomes were limited to the TRL 6 that refers to
the technological demonstration in relevant environment (e.g. devel­
opment of block from CDW with acoustic and thermal performance in
GREEN INSTRUCT project (CORDIS EU research results 2021)). This
indicates that the current stage of CDW materials technology is still on
the investigation stage. Even though limited numbers of applications
have been achieved as mentioned in section 5.1, such applications are
still not massively and generally commercialized. Despite the efforts of
all these projects, the construction sector still endangers the environ­
ment, since construction required large amount of resources (i.e. around
50% of the extracted materials), generated large volume of waste (i.e.
more than 35% of the total waste), and emitted considerable GHG (i.e.
5-12% of the total national GHG emissions) (European Commission
2021). In 2019, the “European Green Deal” (A European Green Deal
2021) was released, which aims to neutralise the net emission of
greenhouse gases (GHG) by 2050. The economic growth in EU is ex­
pected to be decoupled from the use of resource so that a circular
economy can be achieved. In the framework of EU Green Deal, “con­
struction and buildings” sector is considered as one of the key product
value chains in the circular economy action plan (European Commission
2021). To promote this circularity principles of “EU Green Deal” for
construction sector, the “Strategy for a Sustainable Built Environment”
(for material efficiency) and ‘Renovation Wave’ initiative (for energy
efficiency) were launched. Within the scope of “EU Green Deal”, it is a
great chance but also a big challenge for researchers, engineers, gov­
ernment to promote the application of RA, RAC or other CDW materials
towards TRL 7-9. This means that RA, RAC, or other CDW materials
should be applicable for the construction in the real operational envi­
ronment - civilian buildings (e.g. residential and public buildings),
infrastructure (e.g. roads, railway systems, bridges), or military struc­
tures (if applicable).
6. Future Perspectives and Conclusions
6.1. Future Perspectives
In light of the environment impact, it is imperative to expand the
application field of the environmentally friendly RAC especially in the
structural application. The RAC application is limited due to its inferior
mechanical properties (e.g. compressive, bending, splitting tensile
strength) compared to NAC. It has been found that some “green”
methods for RA treatment can significantly improve the mechanical
performance of RAC. These green improving methods include bio­
deposition, addition of pozzolana from industry waste, pre-soaking with
acetic acid, and incorporation of plant-based monofilament short fibres.
However, there are some research gaps within these “green” treatment
methods hindering their practical application. For example, the addition
of bacterial culture medium during biodeposition treatment or the ac­
etate anion during acetic acid treatment may affect the concrete hy­
dration process so as to affect the short and long-term performance of
the RAC. The plant-based fibres in cementitious matrix could be
degraded as the major chemical components (i.e. hemicellulose, lignin,
and the amorphous regions of the cellulose) could easily undergo alka­
line hydrolysis in the cementitious matrix. The mineralization inside the
plant-based fibres due to the hydration process can embrittle the fibre.
As a result, the fibre bridge effect will be weakened, which may reduce
the long-term performance of fibre reinforced RAC. To fill these gaps,
B. Wang et al.
the mechanism of concrete hydration process with additional products
(e.g. bacterial culture medium or acetate anion) and the degradation of
plant-based fibres, and the long-term performance of RAC with “green”
RA treatment methods are recommended for further investigations. To
achieve better performance of RAC, researchers have applied the com­
bination of some of the treatment methods on RA. For example, Sar­
avanakumar et al. (Saravanakumar et al., 2016) treated recycled
concrete aggregate with silica fume after soaking with HCl. The results
showed that the compressive of RAC with recycled concrete aggregate
treated by both HCl and SF was around 13% higher than that with RAC
only treated by HCl. Therefore, some of the “green” treatment methods
as well as appropriate mixing approaches (e.g. TSMA) can be combined
to produce novel RAC that not only has higher loading capacity than the
conventional RAC but also is sustainable and environmental-friendly.
Among all the improvement methods, the addition of nanoparticles
is one of the most beneficial methods since the RAC properties can be
significantly improved by small amount addition, which has been dis­
cussed in section 3.5.1. However, the dispersion of the nanoparticles in
the composition is one of the most critical issues for nano-modification.
Gao et al. (Gao et al., 2020) dispersed 0.1 wt% carbon nanotube by ul­
trasonic for RA treatment and used for RAC. The compressive strength
and splitting tensile strength of the sample with ultrasonic treatment
was respectively 40.5 MPa and 2.42 MPa while those of untreated
sample was 39.5 MPa and 2.34 MPa, respectively. The reason was that
the ultrasonication improved the dispersion of the nanoparticles to
prevent the formation of agglomerates, which could reduce the exposed
particle surface area. Therefore, the filler effect of the nanoparticle can
be ensured and in turn the compressive strength and splitting tensile
strength improved. Except for ultrasonication, several dispersion
methods for nanoparticles have been reported, i.e. high-shear mixing by
using for example three-roll mills (Zabihi et al., 2018), or the addition of
surfactant (Gao et al., 2020). All these methods can be easily conducted
in the lab-scale but have limitations in the massive production in con­
crete industry. On one hand, adding nanoparticles increases the cost of
the concrete production. For example, 1 wt.% nanosilica in 1 tonne
concrete can increase the concrete cost by around 1,500 €. On the other
hand, additional costs and energy incur for dispersion methods. In
addition, these dispersion methods such as ultrasonication and
high-shear mixing are difficult for the massive application due to their
maximal mixing capacity and duration. For example, the flow rates of
the nanoparticle-dispersed water for ultrasonication can be around 20
m3 per hour, which still cannot meet the requirement of the industrial
concrete casting speed. Therefore, new technology to achieve cheaper
and quicker dispersion of nanoparticles is needed for nanoparticles
application in massive RAC production.
Another critical issue of the structural application of RAC is the large
variation in strength. The variation comes from differences of the parent
structure (e.g. concrete structure, masonry, or tiles), the original ag­
gregates (e.g. aggregates from C30 or C60 concrete), the crushing
methods, or the improvement treatment. In this case, many parameters
are required in order to have a good prediction for the RAC strength.
Besides, the relationship between all these parameters is not always
linear so that a certain regression-based model cannot be sufficient for
the strength prediction. Through M5’ algorithm the entire prediction
can be separated into several situations (“leaves” of the tree algorithm)
and for each situation the number of parameters can be reduced.
Through ANN and ANFIS, the complex relationships between parame­
ters can be remarkably described and the final prediction (output) were
reported to have an excellent correlation to the experimental results. In
this case, the combination of M5’ algorithm with ANN or ANFIS can not
only reduce the calculation effort but also increase the accuracy of the
prediction. With the accurate prediction from the combined modelling
methods, the target mechanical performance of RAC can be easily
controlled in the industry. This makes the prefabrication for RAC to be
possible and it would further contribute to the industrialization of RAC
construction. To achieve this, a large database of experimental results of
24
Resources, Conservation & Recycling 171 (2021) 105565
RAC should be established and the relevant parameters (e.g. water/
cement ratio, compressive strength of the parent structure, original ag­
gregates, or crushing methods) should be possibly recorded.
6.2. Conclusions
Using recycled aggregates from construction and demolition wastes
(CDW) in cement and concrete industry can preserve the natural
aggregate resources, reduce the need for landfill space and contribute to
cost efficiency. Because of the existence of two interfacial transition
zones (ITZ) due to the “wall effect” and the cracks generated during the
manufactory, the physical, chemical, and the short and long-term me­
chanical properties of recycled aggregate concrete (RAC) are usually
inferior to those of the natural aggregate concrete (NAC). In order to
mitigate the negative effect of RA and improve RAC performance, three
different kinds of methods were proposed by the previous researchers, i.
e. (1) reduction of RA porosity; (2) removing the old mortar layer, and
(3) property improvement without RA modification. A dozen of
regression-based models for RAC to predict the compressive strength, E-
modulus or stress-strain curve under compression have been reviewed in
this study. The prediction results were reported to be appropriate to the
relevant experimental results. The artificial intelligence methods, e.g.
ANN, ANFIS, M5’ algorithm and ICA-XGBoost model have been also
applied for the prediction of RAC compressive properties. The prediction
of the artificial intelligence methods correlates better than regression-
based prediction to the experimental results, since the relationship be­
tween the determining parameters can be non-linear and coupled. Due
to the uncertainty and inferior properties of RA, it is generally utilized
for non-structural applications such as pavement, filling material or
gabion. However, the exploitation of RA in structural application tends
to be more popular as several constructions have been partly or fully
built by RAC. Challenges in technical, economic, political, and social
aspects impeded the CDW recycling and RAC application. The summary
of EU projects on RA, RAC and other CDW materials in the last ten years
indicated that the further promotion on these materials should focus on
the investigation and application in operational environment.
The future directions for investigating RAC are recommended in this
study. The improvement of environmentally-friendly RA treatments and
their effective combination can improve the RAC load-carrying capacity
and reduce the negative environment impact of RAC. Nanoparticle for
RA application has its limitation due to the difficulty in particle
dispersion. Quicker and cheaper dispersion methods are needed to be
created. Artificial intelligence methods can well predict the RAC me­
chanical performance. However, a large database with all detailed in­
formation of RAC should be established for the future RAC prediction
with artificial intelligence methods.
CRediT roles
Wang B: Original draft; Formal analysis; Methodology. Yan LB:
Funding acquisition; Conceptualization; Project administration; Super­
vision; Review & Editing. Fu QN: review & editing; Formal analysis.
Kasal B. Supervision; Review & Editing
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
The research was financially supported by Bundesministerium für
Bildung und Forschung (BMBF, Federal Ministry of Education and
Research of Germany) (Grant No.: 031B0914A and Grant No.:
01DS8023) and by Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe e.V. (FNR,
B. Wang et al.
Agency for Renewable Resources) founded by Bundesministerium für
Ernährung und Landwirtschaft (BMEL, The Federal Ministry of Food and
Agriculture of Germany), under the Grant Award: 22011617. The first
author also would like to thank the China Scholarship Council to support
his PhD study.
Supplementary materials
Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in
the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.105565.
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