Development of Sustainable Alkali Activated Binder for Construction Using Sugarcane Bagasse Ash and Marble Waste

Abstract

The rapid growth in the construction sector leads to high demand for construction materials and hence global research studies focus on the use of sustainable alternative materials to meet the demand. Sugarcane bagasse ash is a by-product from sugar industry and about 44,220 tonnes/day is disposed of as waste in India. Bagasse ash consists of reactive silica and can be used as a sustainable source material in alkali activated binder instead of disposed as a waste. Similarly, marble waste from marble processing plants can be used as an alternative for fine aggregates. Alkali-activated concrete has high strength and durability compared to conventional cement concrete. Bagasse ash can be blended with other industrial by-products like slag to produce high quality of alkali-activated concrete without cement. The combined effect of bagasse ash and marble waste in alkali-activated mortar is not yet investigated. This present study focuses on the performance of bagasse ash and marble waste as a precursor and fine aggregates respectively in alkali-activated mortar. Influence of three different molarities (6 M, 8 M and 10 M) and two curing methods (heat and ambient curing) and three levels of replacement using bagasse ash (10%, 20% and 30%) were investigated. This experimental results showed that a considerable improvement in compressive strength for bagasse ash with marble waste blended alkali-activated mortar specimens compared to only bagasse ash blended mortar specimens. Moreover, the strength of bagasse ash blended specimens was increased with molarity. Ambient cured bagasse ash blended specimens exhibited higher strength compared to the heat cured specimens.