The effect of coal bottom ash in mechanical and environmental performances for polymer composite

Abstract

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).

Usage of Coal Fly Ash and Bottom Ash from Ash Ponds for Bricks and Precast Concrete Blocks – A Review

“…The particle size of the CBA is less than 300 μm and can be considered as "fine" grade aggregates while CFA is smaller in size than CFA. The larger particles observed (> 300 μm) were probably due to agglomeration of small BA particles which include slag and clinker (Zainal et al, 2020).…”