Effect of wood/binder ratio, slag/binder ratio, and alkaline dosage on the compressive strength of wood-geopolymer composites
- Authors: Gigar, Firensenay , Khennane, Amar , Liow, Jong-leng , Tekle, Biruk
- Date: 2023
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: International Symposium of the International Federation for Structural Concrete, fib Symposium 2023, Istanbul, 5-7 June 2023, Building for the Future: Durable, Sustainable, Resilient: Vol. 349 LNCE, p. 658-667
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- Description: The impact of building construction on the environment is significant. Occupying large land areas (urban footprint), buildings are one of the most important consumers of resources and raw materials. They are responsible for 38% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in both developed and developing countries. Therefore, incorporating sustainability and resilience into all aspects of urban infrastructure has become necessary. To curb emissions, part of the answer lies in the use of construction and building materials made from recycled materials. Bio-sourced materials, like wood chips, combined with a cementitious matrix, offer an alternative to conventional materials. They are sustainable, lightweight, and have good thermal insulation. However, because of their inferior mechanical strength, they have limited use as load-bearing structural parts. Furthermore, the use of Portland cement as a binder still poses some challenges due to its high carbon footprint. This study investigates the potential of wood-geopolymer composites for better mechanical performance and environmental sustainability. A 6x2x2x2 fractional factorial-based experimental design was used to simultaneously study the effect of slag content, wood binder ratio, and alkaline on the compressive strength of the wood-geopolymer composite. The experiments showed encouraging results for developing ambient cured wood geopolymer composites. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
Recycling timber waste into geopolymer cement bonded wood composites
- Authors: Gigar, Firesenay , Khennane, Amar , Liow, Jong-leng , Tekle, Biruk , Katoozi, Elmira
- Date: 2023
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Construction and Building Materials Vol. 400, no. (2023), p.
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- Description: Addressing critical societal challenges, such as climate change, resource depletion, and environmental protection, requires sustainable management of resources. This study reports on the results of an experimental program using waste wood, including chromium copper arsenic (CCA) treated wood, to produce ambiently cured geopolymer cement bonded wood composites (WGC), and the results are very encouraging. The composite exhibited a reasonable compressive strength, which ranged between 7 and 27 MPa inversely corresponding to the amount of wood per binder ratio ranging between 0.1 and 0.4, conferring it the possibility of being used as a building material. The compressive strength of the composite with 40% wood chips showed the lowest compressive strength with values of 9.79, 7.29, and 7.92 MPa for decontaminated, CCA-treated, and non-CCA-treated wood chips, respectively. The results indicated that for all the wood per binder ratios, the use of decontaminated wood chips significantly improves the compressive, flexural, and specific strength of the composites, as well as their ductility, compared to non-decontaminated CCA-treated and non-CCA-treated wood chips. This paves the way for using wood waste in sustainability oriented product development and manufacturing. © 2023 The Author(s)