At present, the treatment of tailings is mostly carried out in the form of stacking in tailings ponds, resulting in a huge waste of mineral resources and a major threat to the environment and ecology. Using tailings instead of a part of the cement to make cementitious materials is an effective way to reduce the accumulation of tailings. In this paper, lead-zinc tailings-based cementitious materials were prepared by using lead-zinc tailings, fly ash, and ordinary Portland cement, and the effects of four factors on the mechanical properties of lead-zinc tailings, as well as fly ash content, cement content, and water-binder ratio were studied by orthogonal experiments. The corresponding relationship between the factors and the properties of cementitious materials was determined, and the optimization and prediction of the raw material ratio of lead-zinc tailings-based cementitious materials were realized. The test showed the ratio of raw materials to be at the lowest price ratio. Synchronously the ratio that meets the minimum strength requirements was predicted. When the proportion of fly ash:lead and zinc tailings:cement = 30:40:30 and the water-binder ratio was 0.4, the predicted compressive strength of the prepared cementitious material achieved 22.281 MPa, which meets the strength requirements, while the total content of lead-zinc tailings and fly ash was the highest at this time.
Keywords: cementitious material; compressive strength; lead–zinc tailings; orthogonal experimental design; response surface analysis.