A Study on the Properties of Blended Regenerated Spent Catalyst and Cement Sandcrete Blocks

ABSTRACT

Sandcrete is widely used as building material. Its properties greatly depend on the properties and proportions of its constituents. The main binder material to produce sandcrete is the Portland cement. The uncertainty about future availability of commonly used Portland materials concomitantly with the environmental problems such as greenhouse gases emissions and high cost of clinker consumption are highlighting the need of identifying other materials for the construction industry, which will aid in minimizing the clinker consumption and reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and cost in the production of cement. The purpose of this study is to examine the properties of sandcrete blocks produced with blended Regenerated Spent Catalyst and cement. In this work, two different series of sandcrete mixtures in which cement was partially replaced with Regenerated Spent Catalyst(RSC) within the range of 5% to 20% (by mass) with an increment of 5%. 100% cement sandcrete was also prepared as reference sandcrete. The physical properties studied were compressive strength, water absorption and setting time. Chemical property studied was chloride content. Comparison of data between the control and that of cement with additives were made. The results obtained in this study clearly indicated that substituting Portland cement up to 20wt. % RSC gave sandcrete strengths higher than the 32.5 N/mm2 , which corresponds to that of Portland cement. The replacement of Portland cement with 10 wt. % of RSC gave the highest strength of 34.0 N/mm2 . Thus, Regenerated Spent Catalyst may be utilized as effective mineral additive for designing durable sandcrete structures. The optimum amount of RSC recommended to be added as an additive to the Portland cement is 10%