The objective of this research is to investigate the potential use of Cameron Highland reservoir sediment in compressed brick production. The sediments can be classified as well-graded clayey sandy SILT and well-graded gravely SAND whereby the grain size is comparable to the grain size of sand and silt. The sediment was used as a 100 % replacement for the soils content in conventional soil cement bricks. Besides that, sodium bentonite, mica, fly ash and bottom ash are used as pozzolan to partially replace the cement in the sediment cement bricks. This paper presents the compressive strength of sediment cement brick incorporating sodium bentonite, mica, bottom ash and fly ash as partial replacement of cement. The total replacement of soils by Cameron Highland reservoir sediment (Mix 2) shows significant increase in compressive strength of the bricks compare to the conventional soil cement bricks (Mix 1), while partial replacement of 10 % pozzolan results in optimum strength. On the other hand, 10 % of bottom ash and 10 % of fly ash (Mix 13) as partial replacement of cement achieved the highest compressive strength. This implies that sodium bentonite, mica, fly ash and bottom ash can be used as pozzolan to partial replace the cement.

Fabrication is essentially the manipulation of raw materials into a desired product based on a workable approach. In this project, fabrication is fundamentally the process by which coal bottom ash (BA) are compatible with resin to form and improve construction materials which satisfy the assigned requirements and applications. BA have a porous and granular structure which limits its application and commercialization. Many investigations have been carried out towards the effective utilization of other reinforcement material or fillers such as fly ash for both concrete composite and polymeric composites. From this research project, resin was used as binder materials to BA which have porous and granular structure that limits its application. Despite of that, the resin can be transformed and tailored to fit specific needs. The findings show resin was greatly cooperated more than 40% of BA in the mixture which directly improve the mechanical performances on drop impact test. A part from that, environmental issues should be considered in utilizing BA. Since the BA is classified under scheduled waste (SW 104) which contains heavy metals, CBA blended with resin were readily in encapsulation form to mitigate the leaching of metals towards surrounding. Leachate study was conducted to all sample compositions and there is no leaching of metals detected from the sample due to increase in chemical stability. The concentration of toxic metals that leached were below than threshold value set by Department of Environment, Malaysia (DoE).

Electrical companies generate electricity mainly from two major types of plant; hydroelectric plants and thermal plants. Hydroelectric is the term referring to electricity generated by hydropower; the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling or flowing water through dams operation. The sedimentation of such dams over years will cause large capacity losses of the dams. Thermal plants generate electricity through coal-fired power plants which produce millions tons of fly ash yearly. This fly ash accumulates rapidly and causes enormous problems of disposal. Therefore, the research work presented in this paper is dealing with utilizing reservoir sediment and fly as to form brick under pressure. Sediment brick can be produced as a load bearing brick with compressive strength is greater than 7 N/mm2.

As larger amounts of coal are burned every day to produce electricity for a growing population, more coal ash is produced and stockpiled in large landfills and ash ponds. The ever-increasing stockpiles of unutilized Coal Fly Ash (CFA) and Bottom Ash (CBA) are a growing health and environmental concern. Studies have shown that communities living near ash ponds are subjected to an increased risk of respiratory illness, and the stockpiles can also potentially cause environmental pollution due to leachate. The potential utilization of CFA and CBA is to use them as natural aggregate substitutes for construction materials such as mortar, bricks and precast concrete. This paper aims to review recent studies on the usage of CFA and CBA in producing brick and precast concrete blocks, the changes in the properties of the CFA or CBA bricks and precast concrete blocks compared to control samples, as well as the effects of seawater intrusion into the concrete mix, which indicate the potential effects of using CFA and CBA stored in coastal ash ponds.

No abstract