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Procedia Engineering 184 (2017) 778 – 783

Advances in Material & Processing Technologies Conference

Production of A Green Lightweight Aggregate Concrete by

Incorporating High Volume Locally Available Waste Materials
Javad Nodeh Farahani a, *, Payam Shafigh b, Hilmi Bin Mahmud a
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
b
Department of Building Surveying, Faculty of Built Environment, University of Malaya, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Abstract

Lightweight concrete offers numerous benefits compared to normal weight concrete such as reduction in dead load and
construction costs. One of the most common methods of producing structural lightweight concrete is the use of lightweight
aggregates. The application of waste substances as cement substitutes or aggregates in concrete can support a solution in
order to decrease negative influences of the concrete industry. One of the agricultural solid wastes derived from the industry
of palm oil is oil palm shell (OPS) which processes about 50% lower weight compared to normal weight aggregates. The
paper reports an investigation on the oil palm shell as coarse aggregate as well as fly ash and rice husk as supplementary
cementitious material to generate more environmentally friendly lightweight concrete. Based on the research findings, the
environmentally friendly structural lightweight aggregate concrete has the potential to be made through combining three
kinds of waste substances: oil palm shell as coarse aggregate and blended RHA-FA as a substitution for cement (by mass)
up to 70%. The act of replacing the cement by blended RHA-FA in OPS concrete leads to density reduction.
Keywords: Lightweight concrete; Oil palm shell; Solid waste; Supplementary cementitious materials; Rice husk ash, Fly ash.

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +6011 11859965 ; fax: +60379675713

E-mail address: j_farahani_my@yahoo.com

1877-7058 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the Urban Transitions Conference
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2017.04.158
 Javad Nodeh Farahani et al. / Procedia Engineering 184 (2017) 778 – 783 779

1. Introduction

Today, concrete has become the most commonly used building material in the construction industry. One of the
remarkable benefits of concrete is its excellent mechanical and physical characteristics, if properly designed and
manufactured. It has excellent resistance to water, the components of structural concrete have the potential to be
shaped into different sizes and patterns and it is a highly cost-effective and easily accessible substance for the
operation [1]. The popular interest for concrete in construction, employing normal weight aggregates like granite
and gravel has tremendously decreased natural stone deposits, which resulted in irreversible destruction to the
environment [2]. Developed countries have been utilizing the lightweight concrete (LWC) for many years. The
most popular way of achieving LWC production is by using lightweight aggregate (LWA) [3].
The main natural LWAs are diatomite, pumice, scoria, volcanic cinders and tuff [4]. An alternative LWA in
tropical regimes and countries that have a palm oil industry is Oil Palm Shells (OPS), sometimes called Palm Kernel
Shells (PKS) [5]. Employing OPS as a lightweight aggregate to generate lightweight concrete was first studied in
1985 by Abdullah in Malaysia [6]. From the results of several studies, oil palm shell has the potential to be
employed as coarse aggregate in order to produce structural lightweight aggregate concrete [7-11].
The global usage of Portland cement has increased from under 2 million tons in 1880 to 1.3 billion tons in 1996
[12]. Nowadays, 1.5 billion tons has been reported predicting to get to 2.5 billion tons by 2020 [1]. Production of
this amount of cement demands a huge amount of natural resources. A substantial quantity of waste materials is
produced globally as by-products from different sectors, such as industrial and agricultural wastes which have the
potential to be utilized as the supplementary cementitious materials (SCM).
Pozzolan as one of the agricultural and industrial by-products such as rice husk and fly ash are recently obtaining
a huge interest as their applications typically enhance the characteristics of the blended cement concrete, along with
the expenses and also the reduction in the negative influences on the environment. Rice husk is considered as one of
the main by-products from the agricultural field and is easily accessible in various parts around the globe. In some
of the countries, rice husk has been widely used in generating electricity power from the plants and in the form of a
fuel in rice mills to reduce the rice husk volume [13]. Previous studies concluded that RHA is applicable for partial
substitution, due to its extremely high silica (SiO2) which is around 90%. Moreover, it should be mentioned that in
the form of amorphous, it is applicable for applying as a pozzolanic material [14]. The RHA’s silica content helps to
improve the concrete’s mechanical features [15]. On the other hand, Fly ash (FA) is found as the most frequently
used pozzolan and is highly in demand for its application around the world in concrete works. FA is made through
mechanical or electrostatic tools from the flue gases of furnaces in the stations of coal-fired power. Employing fine
fly ash has been observed to highly enhance the characteristics of concrete and mortar [16, 17].
This paper aims to study the potential of making structural sustainable lightweight aggregate concrete through
combining high volume of agricultural and industrial wastes. An OPS has been uses as coarse aggregates and 70%
of OPC has been replaced by RHA and FA.

2. Experimental Details

2.1. Materials Utilized

Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) with surface area of 3.51m 2/g and specific gravity of 3.15 was used. The rice
husk was obtained from a local rice milling plant. Rice husk was burnt in ferrocement furnace. The temperature was
controlled by the structure of the furnace. Fly Ash (FA) which was obtained from a local power station was
classified as class F based on ASTM: C618. Table 1 displays the chemical composition of FA, OPC and RHA.
Coarse aggregates were replaced by OPS. OPS has been washed and soaked in the water for 24 hours before
casting and then dried in the room temperature up to total drying of the surface. Table 2 displays the physical
characteristics of OPS. It can be observed that the local mining sand with fineness modulus of 3.00, the highest
particle size of 4.75 mm, and water absorption of (< 1%) along with specific gravity of 2.55 was employed as the
fine aggregate in this study. Fine aggregate of zone 2 was used based on experimental works. In addition, Sika
ViscoCrete-2199 was used as superplasticizer. Its chemical base is modified polycarboxylate.

Table 1 Chemical Composition of OPC, RHA and Fa

Oxides SiO2 Fe2O3 CaO MgO K2O SO3 Al2O3 LOI
OPC 16.68 3.64 68.36 1.29 0.36 4.80 4.41 1.42
RHA 91.02 1.19 0.80 0.90 3.17 0.30 0.30 1.4
FA 50.24 10.37 6.95 1.84 1.53 0.94 23.53 5.9
780 Javad Nodeh Farahani et al. / Procedia Engineering 184 (2017) 778 – 783

Table 2 Physical Properties of OPS

Physical property OPS
Specific gravity (saturated surface dry) 1.19
Bulk density (kg/m3) 674
Fineness modulus 5.87
24 hours water absorption (%) 20.6

2.2 Mix Proportions and Procedure

Two concrete mixtures were generated in order to investigate the effects of high volume waste material as
supplementary cementitious material (RHA and FA) and coarse aggregate (OPS) on the compressive strength and
density of concrete. The binder quantity (cement, RHA and FA) was fixed at 500 kg/m3. Table 3 presents the
details of the mixtures.
In mix OPSC70, OPC was partly substituted with 35% of RHA and 35% of FA (by mass). All the substances
were blended for 60 seconds with the exception of water and superplasticizer (SP). Then, the SP was added for 180
seconds with 75% of mixing water, and later the remaining water has been added to the mix for 3 minutes before
pouring into steel moulds. Then, by the help of a vibrating table, the fresh concrete was placed into two layers in the
laboratory, which has relative humidity of around 70% and temperature of 30 ± 2ºC.

Table 3 Mix Proportions

Content (kg/m3) SP
Mix No. w/b
OPC RHA FA Sand OPS (% binder)
OPSC 500 0 0 945 324 0.36 1
OPSC70 150 175 175 945 324 0.51 1.5

2.3 Curing Regime

Curing of concrete plays a major role in developing the microstructure and pore structure of concrete. Curing of
concrete means maintaining moisture inside the body of concrete during the early ages and beyond in order to
develop the desired properties in terms of strength & durability. In this study, the specimens were demoulded 24 h
after casting. After demoulding, the specimens were immersed in water at temperature of 22 ± 2ºC up to 56 days.

3. Results and Discussion

3.1. Effect of Blended RHA-FA on Workability

Increasing the percentage OPC substitution with blended RHA-FA from 0 to 70% (35% RHA + 35%FA)
decreased the concrete’s slump. Test results of workability showed that 70% OPC replacement by RHA, decreases
the slump from 11 cm to 8.5 cm, which is still in the acceptable range of slump value (higher than 6.5 cm). In order
to attain desired slump, more water and SP has been added. This is because of the fact that concretes, which consist
of RHA, needed higher water content compared to the normal OPC concrete. Previous studies showed that higher
demand for water in RHA concrete is because of the high carbon content of RHA and high specific surface area[18,
19].

3.2. Effect of Blended RHA-FA on Density

Demoulded density of both samples, OPSC and OPSC70, were measured at 2000 and 1858 kg/m 3, respectively.
As observed, the concrete’s density reduced by about 7% as the blended RHA-FA was used in the OPSC mixture by
 Javad Nodeh Farahani et al. / Procedia Engineering 184 (2017) 778 – 783 781

up to 70%. Mannan has investigated that employing FA as SCM in structural lightweight concrete may reduce the
concrete’s density[20].
Oven dry density (ODD) of both samples was measured at 28 days. ODD of OPSC and OPSC70 were 1840 and
1590, respectively. If normal concrete’s density is taken as 2400 kg/m3, the density of concrete in mixes OPSC and
OPSC70 has decreased by 23% and 33%, respectively. Figure 1 shows the demoulded density of concrete and also
ODD of concrete mixes.

Figure 1 Demoulded and oven dry density of concrete

3.3. Compressive Strength

The compressive strength of OPS concrete without CSM (mix OPSC) at 28 days was about 40 MPa, suggesting
that the reference mixture is considered as high strength concrete. Figure 2 shows the influences of combining FA
and RHA on compressive strength of the two concretes up to 56 days. The observations indicated that the
compressive strength of OPS concrete having CSM is lower compared to that of the reference OPS concrete because
of lower cement content and higher w/b ratio. Shafigh et al. has reported that the use of high volume FA caused
reduction in compressive strength of OPS concrete [21].
Compared to mix OPSC, mix OPSC70 has lower compressive strength of about 82%, 79%, 73%, 52% and 50%
at 1, 3, 7, 28, 56 days. Although the compressive strength of OPS concrete containing 70% of CSM at all ages is
significantly lower than control mix, however the compressive strength of this mix at 28 and 56 days shows that this
concrete is grade 15 and 20 respectively. It shows that this concrete can be used for constructing structural
members. It should be emphasized that the density of this concrete is significantly less than OPS concrete.
Furthermore, the cement used in this concrete is very low at 175 kg/m3. Therefore, it can be considered as greener
production and innovative material.
782 Javad Nodeh Farahani et al. / Procedia Engineering 184 (2017) 778 – 783

40
35
Compressive strength (MPa) 30
25
20 OPSC

15 OPSC70
10
5
0
1 3 7 28 56
Age (days)

Figure 2 Compressive Strength of OPS Concretes Under Water Curing

4. Conclusion

Oil palm shell (OPS) exists in the form of agricultural solid waste that has the potential to be utilized as
lightweight aggregate in order to make lightweight concrete. Based on the research findings, environmentally
friendly structural lightweight aggregate concrete can be made through combining three kinds of waste materials: oil
palm shell as coarse aggregate and blended RHA-FA as a substitution for cement (by mass) up to 70%. The act of
replacing the cement by blended RHA-FA in OPS leads to density reduction along with compressive strength of
concrete. In spite of this, combining the mentioned blended cementitious materials in oil palm shell concrete, grade
20 concrete with low cement content can be produced.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from University of Malaya under the University of
Malaya Research Grant (UMRG), Grant No. RP018/2012C and Postgraduate Research Grant (PPP), Grant No.
PG177-2015A.

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