The marble industry generates tons of marble sludge every year, which presents real problems for professionals in charge of its management. These sludges, which generally end up being stored in nature, generate environmental and health impacts that are difficult to measure. Nevertheless, we can mention among others, the emission of particles in suspension in the air, the immiscions (fall of heavy particles on the ground), the overuse of space…, etc.
In response to this basic problem raised by the need to have to manage the marble sludge produced by the marble industry we came up with the VBM project “Valorization of sludge from the marble industry” which was carried out in 2016/2017. This project is part of the general interest activities of the Center and has received a funding support from the Ministry of Industry, Trade, Investment and Digital Economy through the Support Fund for Technical Centers “FACET”.

The VBM project: “Valorization of sludge from the marble industry” consists in studying the technical and economic feasibility of the valorization of the different types of sludge coming from the production and transformation process of the marble rock.

The project was carried out through the following main actions:

– Framing of the project, sector diagnosis and state of the art on the valorization of marble sludge

– Sampling campaign and physico-chemical characterization of marble sludge with Moroccan marble workers

– Technical feasibility study of the different valorisation ways of marble sludge, especially in the manufacture of :

– Cement mortars
– Cement tiles
– Sanitary products

– Industrial application and economic cost study.

– AMM: Moroccan Association of Marble Masons

The project results demonstrated the technical and economic feasibility of the Valorization of marble sludge in the manufacture of :
– Cement mortars.
– Cement tiles.
– Sanitary products (see figure on the right).