Using of Nanoparticles Extracted from Rice Husk as Cementitious Material for Sustainability Issues

There are many sources of CO₂ emissions in the world. This study concentrates on two of the most important sources of CO₂ emissions. The first one is from Portland cement production as a main component of Portland cement concrete (PСC), which is the main pillar of the construction industry. The second source is due to the burning of rice husk (RH) from rice industry. Based on this information, if different types of nanosilica particles that can be extracted from rice husk, preventing its random burning, and replace part of Portland cement (PC) in PC concrete as a pozzolanic material, which can be considered as a multiple solution for solving the previous mentioned problems of CO2 emissions. The main objective of this study is to investigate the pozzolanic activity of these nano particles (NPs) as it can be used as cement replacement material. Also, give an important usage of rice husk by extracting the nanoparticles from rice husk instead of the random burning of it. An extensive experimental program has been conducted to examine the pozzolanic activity of different nanosilica particles extracted from rice husk using two testing methods. The first method is the electrical conductivity measurement and the second is the strength activity index according to ASTM C311, in each method there are different types of nanosilica (NS) compared to silica fume (SF), which well known as pozzolanic material and also compared to Marble Powder as an inert waste material. The results of the electrical conductivity method show that, the Nanosilica 1 has superior pozzolanic activity compared to the other materials used in this study. On the other hand, the using of the second method (strength activity index) both NS and SF almost give the same pozzolanic activity, it may be related to that, the nanoparticles didn’t disperse in the cement matrix. According to these results the nanosilica could be used as a good replacement of Portland cement due to its pozzolanic activity, which leads to lower emissions of hazards gases in cement manufacturing as well as using the rice husk as waste material.

N. El ASHKAR, Professor of Structural Engineering (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
A. MORSY Assoc. Prof., Structural Engineering (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
A. TAREK, Teacher assistant (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport (Alexandria, Egypt)

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