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Abstract
Palm Oil Fuel Ash (POFA) is by-product obtained by burning of fibers, shells and empty fruit bunches as fuel in palm oil mill
boilers. In this investigation, three ashes were collected from different palm oil mills around Malaysia and namely CAPOFA,
ALPOFA and KTPOFA. The ashes were ground to 45 m before replace 20% by weight of cement in concrete and mortar. The
compressive strength of concretes containing POFA was tested at ages of 7, 28 and 90 days. For durability aspects, concretes and
mortars were prepared to investigate the chloride and sulfate resistance respectively in accordance with appropriate ASTM standards.
Rapid Chloride Penetration Test (RCPT) was conducted in accordance with ASTM C1202 to investigate the ability of concretes
containing POFA to resist the penetration of chloride ions. Change in length and microstructure study for mortar bars containing
POFA immersed in sodium sulfate were conducted to evaluate the effects of sulfate attack on POFA mortars. Concrete and mortar
specimens were prepared using plain portland cement in order to use as control specimens. At age of 90 days, the results of
compressive strength of all POFA concretes were higher than control concrete. All concretes containing POFA showed higher
potential to resist chloride ions penetration compared to control concrete. All mortar bars containing POFA showed lower expansion
and less porous structure than control mortar. Depending on the results of this investigation, it could be concluded that POFA could
be successfully used as supplementary cementing materials to replace 20% of cement in concrete and mortar.
Keywords: palm oil fuel ash, pofa, compressive strength, chloride resistance, sulfate resistance, rcpt test, supplementary cementing
materials
1. Introduction
The cement industry consumes about 12-15% of the total
industrial energy use (Ali et al., 2011). Because of burning of
coal, fossil fuels, fuel oils and petroleum coke in a cement
manufacturing process to produce energy and maintain the
temperature as high as 1450 C in a kiln (Ali et al., 2011; Popescu
et al., 2003), approximately of 0.97 tone of CO2 is produced for
each tone of clinker produced (Anand et al., 2006), therefore; the
cement production process is classified as the second biggest
source that is responsible for 6.97% of CO2 emission in the
world (Metz et al., 2005). One approach to reduce the energy
used in cement industry and then CO2 emission is to substitute
high lime by low lime cement (Popescu et al., 2003). Alternatively,
replacing fossil fuels with wastes which may be considered as
carbon neutral and increasing the use of additives was led to
substantially reduction in energy and emissions of CO2 (Barker et
al., 2009). The need to reduce the CO2 emission caused by cement
production processes is increased due to the concerns of global
warming and climate changes but the use of such previous
*Researcher, Construction Research Centre (UTM-CRC), Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia
(Corresponding Author, E-mail: soabamaga@gmail.com)
**Professor, Construction Research Centre (UTM-CRC), Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia (E-mail:
warid@utm.my)
***Professor, Construction Research Centre (UTM-CRC), Faculty of Civil Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia (E-mail:
m.elgelany@gmail.com)
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2. Experimental Program
2.1 Materials
2.1.1 Cement
Ordinary Portland cement was used in this study.
2.1.2 Palm Oil Fuel Ash
Three different palm oil fuel ashes were collected from three
different palm oil mills in Malaysia and namely CAPOFA,
KTPOFA and ALPOFA. The ashes were sieved through 300 m
sieve in order to eliminate undesired particles. The ashes were
ground by modified Loss Angeles abrasion machine to reduce
the particle size to 45 m. Sieving and grinding POFA to 45 m
or less is necessary in order to be used as cement replacement
material, otherwise raw POFA is only good as filler. However,
Vol. 17, No. 7 / November 2013
the cost of sieving and grinding POFA may compensate the cost
of environmental hazard from the discharge of the ash as landfill
or any other activities. Physically, POFA is grayish in color and
become dark with increasing proportions of unburned carbon
and it is finer than OPC (Awal and Hussin, 1997). The particles
shape of CAPOFA, KTPOFA and ALPOFA are clearly illustrated
in Figs. 1, 2 and 3 obtained using a scanning electron microscopy
method. The large particles of raw POFA become thinner,
irregular, and crushed formed particles as a result of grinding
process. Based on the chemical composition of POFA ashes and
cement presented in Table 1, CAPOFA are rich in silica content
and could be classified as class N pozzloana according to the
standard (ASTM C618-03, 2004). ALPOFA has high content of
silica and could be classified as class N pozzloana when LOI
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Cement
21.9
5.0
2.6
65.1
3.10
0.5
1.3
CAPOFA
58.30
6.69
9.77
6.72
3.69
0.96
8.40
7.34
ALPOFA
59.60
7.05
8.77
8.06
3.09
0.57
7.64
14.85
KTPOFA
52.50
8.83
5.73
11.30
3.55
0.82
10.20
6.72
SP
[liter]
11.5
11.5
11.5
11.5
W/B
0.28
0.28
0.28
0.28
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and 39.61 MPa at 7 days and 48.72, 36.87 and 41.58 MPa at 28
days respectively, which are generally lower than compressive
strength of control concrete at same ages, the reason is that POFA
concretes have less cement content, therefore; the produced
hydration products that are essential to forming the calcium silicate
hydrate gel are less than that of control concrete (Sata et al., 2007).
At 90 days, the compressive strength of CAPOFA, ALPOFA
and KTPOFA were significantly developed to possess 53.02,
51.95 and 53.44 MPa respectively. As POFA concretes compared
to control concrete, it could be observed that higher compressive
strength to that of control concrete could be gained at late ages
when 20% of cement replaced by CAPOFA, ALPOFA or
KTPOFA. This is due to the high amount of SiO2 content of
POFA that react with calcium hydroxide at later ages to produce
impermeable concrete by producing additional calcium silicate
hydrate gel (Weerachart et al., 2007; Weerachart et al., 2009;
Sata et al., 2007; Sata et al., 2004).
3.2. Chloride Resistance
The results of the RCPT test for control concrete and CAPOFA,
ALPOFA and KTPOFA concretes are shown in Fig. 5. The
analysis of results are based on duplicate specimens for each
concrete. After applying a potential difference of 60 V dc for 6
hrs across the ends of specimens, the average of charge passed
for control concrete was 731.7 (in coulombs). For CAPOFA,
ALPOFA and KTPOFA concretes, the average of charge passed
(in coulombs) was 276.3, 380.25 and 463.0 respectively. It is
4. Conclusions
From the result of this study, the following conclusions can be
drawn:
1. POFA has high content of SiO2 and could be used to replace
20 % of Portland cement in concrete mix without any degradation in compressive strength at later ages.
2. The cost of preparation of POFA to be used as cementing
replacement material may compensate the cost of environmental hazard from the discharge of the ash as landfill or
any other activities.
3. The reaction of POFA starts at later ages after 28 days where silica oxide reacts with calcium hydroxide to produce C-S-H gel.
4. The resistivity of CAPOFA, ALPOFA and KTPOFA concretes to chloride ions penetration is substantially improved.
5. Improvement in sulfate resistance up to 37% could be
achieved when 20% of cement in mortar mix is replaced by
CAPOFA or KTPOFA ashes.
6. Consuming POFA as cementing materials in construction
industry may lead to expand the palm oil industry and
reduce the environmental problems and CO2 emission.
References
Al Amoudi, O. S. B., Rasheeduzzafar, Maslehuddin, M., and Al Mana,
A. I. (1993). Prediction of long term corrosion resistance of plain
and blended cement concretes. ACI Materials Journal, Vol. 90, No.
6, pp. 564-570.
Ali, M. B., Saidura, R. and Hossainb, M. S. (2011). A review on
emission analysis in cement industries. Renewable and Sustainable
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