Coal Ash and Rice Husk Ash Binder for Manufacturing Hollow Blocks

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a binder from coal ash and rice husk ash for manufacturing hollow blocks. Experiments were conducted to determine the compressive strength of the coal ash and rice husk ash as binders using cylindrical specimens at different curing periods. The mixture proportion with the highest compressive strength in the experiment was adopted in making the 4” hollow blocks. The compressive strength of the hollow blocks with the coal ash and rice husk ash binder was also determined at different curing periods.Cylindrical specimens with four different alkali activators were made and subjected to compression testing on the 3rd, 5th, and 7th day of curing. The mean compressive strength of the cylindrical specimen with all sodium hydroxide activator (RS0CS0) after 7 days curing is 2.54 MPa as compared to 3.05 MPa with the 2.5 sodium silicate to sodium hydroxide ratio (RS1CS0). As the amount of sodium silicate from rice husk was doubled (RS2CS0), the average compressive strength of the 7 days old cylindrical samples increased from 3.05 MPa to 3.49 MPa. Meanwhile, the 7th-day compressive strength of the cylindrical specimen with commercial silica (RS0CS1) was 5.5 Mpa.Hollow blocks were also manufactured based on the material proportion that utilizes RHA with the highest compressive strength or the design mixture RS2CS0. These blocks have a mean compressive strength of 1.22 MPa on the 3rd day, 1.88 MPa on the 7th day, and 2.7 MPa on the 14th day of the curing period.