Challenges and Prospects of Widespread Adoption of Pozzolans for Building Construction: A Statistical Assessment

Abstract

Pozzolans are supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) that many researchers have found suitable for partial replacement of cement in concrete in order to reduce the environmental hazards and energy consumption involved in the production of concrete. However, these materials have been seldomly used in the present day construction industry especially in Nigeria, in spite of notable research efforts on them over the past decade and abundance of evidence to support their tremendous benefits. A question therefore naturally arises: What is responsible for the hesitation in applying pozzolans widely in the construction industry? This paper investigated by means of a research survey the reasons for their low acceptance and adoption by stakeholders in the construction industry. Opinions from 82 respondents of impressive involvement in the construction industry were collated and statistically analyzed using non-parametric tests, namely Cronbach’s Alpha Reliability, Kruskal-Wallis H and Mann-Whitney U tests. The results of the analyses affirmed that pozzolans are effective in mitigating the negative environmental effects caused by using conventional cement in concrete. It further revealed that notable factors militating against their adoption in the construction industry include unavailability of relevant mixture design standards for pozzolanic concrete, lack of commercial production of pozzolanic concrete, unavailability of sufficiently skilled professionals on pozzolan application, inadequate public awareness, lack of policies recommending and guiding its use, and fears on results achievable with use of pozzolans. Respondents generally agreed that development of proper guidelines and standards, as well as adequate public awareness will favour wide acceptance and industrial application of pozzolans.