Coconut Fibers Ash and Eco-Friendly Concrete

Hello steemit and steemians..

Coconut as one of the natural resources that is very beneficial to human life is still endless to be discussed. Even as agricultural commodities that directly affect the economic improvement of society, as a very useful commodity in the health sector, as well as its role in the utilization of coconut waste as one of the supporters that have been taken into account in the field of environmentally friendly concrete technology.

In my previous post the utilization of coconut fiber as a supporter of environmentally friendly concrete technology discusses about how coconut husk is used for composite concrete. Read more here

And in this post I'm still discussing about coconut husk, it's just the different utilization of coconut fiber ash and fly ash which is used to substitute the use of cement which during this time we know it as one of concrete forming material through hydration process where it turns out the production process show more negative effects for nature such as environmental pollution, air pollution and for human health.

[Source Image : greenspec]

Data published by greenspec that cement production is a producer of anthropogenic (man-made) CO₂ in the world after transportation and energy generation. Read more here. That's why I'm interested in writing about this.

[Source Image : greenspec]

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According to wikipedia :

Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world as a base material of concrete, mortar, cement. In the form of fine powder produced by heating limestone and clay minerals in the kiln to form clinker, grind clinker, and add a small amount of other materials. Portland cement is caustic, so it can cause chemical burns. Powders can cause irritation or, with severe exposure, lung cancer, and may contain some dangerous components; such as crystalline silica and hexavalent chromium. Environmental concerns are the high energy consumption required to mine, produce, and transport cement; and associated air pollution, including the release of greenhouse gases (eg carbon dioxide), dioxins, NO_x, SO₂, and particulates.

Coconut fiber ash is a silica compound SiO₂ obtained from heating of coconut fibers at a temperature between 500^oC - 700^oC (lower than conventional cement heating process > 1300^oC) until the fiber becomes ashes after through the process of carbonating at a certain temperature. Where silica SiO₂ is one of the cement-forming elements that serves to improve the properties of concrete particularly the compressive strength of concrete, bond strength and abrasion resistance. Apart from silicon oxide also reduces the permeability of concrete to chloride ions that protect the concrete reinforcing steel from corrosion, especially in chloride rich environments such as coastal areas.

From the coconut fiber ash test (CFA) conducted by the Center of Environmental Health Engineering, obtained composition of Silica (SiO₂) compounds amounted to 67.55%. This composition proves that CFA has the potential to be collaborated with fly ash (FA) as Supplementary Cementitious Material (SCM).

The British Journal of Applied Science & Technology at www.sciencedomain.org
stated at the conclusion of his research that from the results obtained, a mixture of coconut fiber ash showed some promise to be used in concrete cubes in a toilet latrine construction. The strength of the cube press from 28 days to 90 days indicates that the replacement rate of 10% and 30% meets the requirements of BS EN 206-1; 2000 for Class C20/25 concreting. In conclusion, the study reveals that partial replacement of 10% to 30% of Ordinary Portland Cement with coconut fiber ash by using a W/C ratio of 0.55 is particularly suitable for the production of concrete cubes in pit construction.

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Ridho Bayuaji, Riky Wahyu Kurniawan and colleagues in the journal "Eco Innovative Materials: The Utilization of Composite Ashes of Coconut Fiber and Fly Ash on Cement Paste" stated that the results of this study conclude that the optimum composite composition of coconut fiber waste and fly ash succeeded in substituting 30 % cement with composition: 25% coconut fiber ash and 5% fly ash.

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So the use of coconut fiber ash becomes one of the answers to the challenges of the times in the world of construction as one of the alternative technologies to save nature and people from conventional technology attacks that are more likely to cause long-term negative impact. I hope the researchers continue to develop research on environmentally friendly technologies to save human survival.

Hopefully this post useful. Thanks for reading.

Best regard @edoe

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Reference :
wikipedia.org
greenspec.co.uk
journalrepository.org
iptek.its.ac.id
jurnal.untad.ac.id

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