Cement and concrete are the most widely used construction materials from many decades due to its

many advantages. Even though concrete having many advantages, still it is under research for enhancing
their properties to suit current requirements in the construction field. In Japan, later of 1980’s a new
concrete is developed as special concrete is called self compacting concrete

INTRODUCTION

Concrete is one of the most important materials in building construction and other infrastructure works.
About 2.7 billion m3 of concrete was generated in 2002 worldwide, which is more than 0.4 m3 of
concrete generated per person once a year [1]. It is anticipated that the need for concrete will increase
further to almost 7.5 billion m3 (about 18 billion tons) a year by 2050 [2] . Such an enormous utilization
of concrete calls for higher use of natural aggregates and cement, thus taking toll on the environment.
At least three-quarters of the total volume of concrete consists of coarse and fine aggregates. Obviously,
natural resources such as river sand are getting depleted [3]. The prohibition on mining in some areas
and the growing need for natural environment conservation further exacerbate the problem of river
sand availability. Finding new alternative materials for sustainable development so as to substantially
decrease the consumption of natural resources became imperative to safeguard the interests of future
generations. High consumption of natural resources led to greater amount of industrial wastes and
environmental degradation [4]. Such factors have driven researchers to come up with solutions leading
to much needed sustainable development. Coal fired thermal power plants have created tremendous
volumes of coal bottom ash (CBA) and coal fly ash (CFA) (20–80% respectively) for years. CBA and CFA
are by-products of pulverized coal combustion. Using them together, increase the use of disposal wastes
which can reduce the environmental impact.

Coal fired thermal plants in India produce about 131 million tons of coal ash, which comprises about 25
million tons of coal bottom ash. Utilization of coal bottom ash has environmental advantages also which
are of great importance in the present context of sustainability of natural resources. The replacement of
river sand with industrial by-products such as coal bottom ash in concrete can prove both technically
and economically beneficial to the construction industry. In this study, laboratory tests were conducted
to assess the possibility of the use of coal bottom ash as a substitute material of river sand in concrete.
River sand was substituted with coal bottom ash by mass in concrete at 0, 30, 50, 75 and 100%
replacement level

Properties of concrete containing high volumes of coal bottom ash as fine aggregate

Malkit Singh
Bottom ash
Bottom ash is part of the non-combustible residue of combustion in a power
plant, boiler, furnace or incinerator. In an industrial context, it has traditionally referred to coal
combustion and comprises traces of combustibles embedded in forming clinkers and sticking to hot
side walls of a coal-burning furnace during its operation. The portion of the ash that escapes up
the chimney or stack is, however, referred to as fly ash. The clinkers fall by themselves into the
bottom hopper of a coal-burning furnace and are cooled. The above portion of the ash is also
referred to as bottom ash.

sources. Coal bottom ash is usually a well-graded material and its particle size distribution is similar to
that of river sand. Its particles have interlocking characteristics. Coal bottom ash is lighter and more
brittle as compared to natural river sand. Appreciating the environmental problems, researchers in their
studies have targeted coal bottom ash as fine aggregate in concrete. According to Cheriaf et al. (1999),
coal bottom ash qualifies the requirements of European standard EN 450 for use in concrete. A study
carried out by Ghafoori and Bucholc (1997) revealed that durable concrete can be made with high-
calcium coal bottom ash as fine aggregate.

1.1.1 PROCESS OF BOTTOM ASH

In a conventional water impounded hopper (WIH) system, the clinker lumps get

crushed to small sizes by clinker grinders mounted under water and fall down into
a trough from where a water ejector takes them out to a sump. From there it is
pumped out by suitable rotary pumps to dumping yard far away. In another
arrangement a continuous link chain scrapes out the clinkers from under water and
feeds them to clinker grinders outside the bottom ash hopper.

More modern systems adopt a continuous removal philosophy. Essentially, a heavy

duty chain conveyor submerged in a water bath below the furnace which quenches
hot ash as it falls from the combustion chamber and removes the wet ash
continuously up to a de-watering slope before onward discharge into mechanical
conveyors or directly to storage silos.
These days bottom ash can be extracted, cooled and conveyed using dry ash
technology from various companies. Dry ash handling has many benefits. When left
dry the ash can be used to make concrete and other useful materials. There are also
 several environmental benefits. Existing dry ash handling systems
include: Magaldi's MAC Ash Cooler System, Qingdao Songling's DAP Dry Ash
Processor, Clyde Bergemann's DRYCON system, and Conveyor Corporation's VAX
Vibratory Ash Extractor.

(senior)

Currently, graphene oxide-based materials and its applications have been given a great interest due to
unique graphene oxide properties which can effectively enhance the composite material properties.
Graphene oxide (C54H17 + O + (OH)3 + COOH) is produced by graphite oxidation which leads to graphite
oxide and the later can be easily exfoliated into layers of graphene oxide (GO) [1,2]. A common
approach to the GO synthesis is by exfoliated graphite using the chemical method at which concentrated
acids with help of a strong oxidizing agent yield graphite oxide [2]. GO sheets are intensely hydrophilic
because of the functionalization of epoxide and hydroxyl groups at the basal planes and carboxyl and
carbonyl groups at the edges. This makes GO sheets freely disperse in water [2]. This research aims to
investigate a new approach to enhance concrete properties by adopting this promising nano-material of
GO. Strength and durability are the two main characteristics of concrete structural design that govern its
efficiency for load capacity and service life purposes. Strength is the capacity of concrete to resist stress
(such as compressive, shear, tensile... etc.), and it is a function of different aspects like mix design,
structural design, curing process and others. This is why it has been extensively researched in literature,
in order to develop its magnitude. Within the last two decades that purpose has been significantly
maintained, currently there is some kind of concrete described as ultra-high strength concrete with a
compressive strength of above 120 MPa. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2015.01.083 0950-
0618/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 3 9214 8034. E-mail
address: jsanjayan@swin.edu.au (J.G. Sanjayan). Construction and Building Materials 84 (2015) 341–347
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Construction and Building Materials journal homepage:
www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat Durability of concrete which governs the service life of concrete
structures can be defined as concrete’s ability to resist chemical attack, weathering conditions, and
other service-life circumstances, poses many challenges. It is essential that any kind of concrete
structure must continue to achieve its designed functions during specified projected service life [3].
However, in spite of the large number of studies in concrete durability, there is still scope for
improvement in this area as asset owners continue to demand more durable structures with longer
service life. Recently, some research has adopted nanomaterials as an encouraging reinforced material
to cement matrix [4,5]. It is hypothesised in this study that the carbon-based nanomaterial can enhance
the pore structure of cement matrix in such a way that would enhance the concrete permeability to
resist fluid ingress and subsequent chemical attacks. This is in addition to the chemical and electrical
influence of GO on cement matrix, which could play an important role to impede steel reinforcement
corrosion process. This new nano-sized material has a promising influence on development of cement
based materials [6]. Carbon-based nano materials have been adopted widely to reinforce cementitious
matrix for example, carbon nano tubes (CNTs) is reported as an addition to cement composites which
have the ability not only to improve the mechanical properties of cementitious matrix by controlling the
cracks at the nanoscale level [7–9] but also it can improve the microstructure of cement matrix and its
transport properties (i.e. water permeability, water sorptivity and gas permeability) [10]. GO is a
hexagonal network of carbon atoms with sp2 and sp3 hybridized orbitals. There are many functional
groups within GO structure consisting of hydroxyl and epoxide groups [11,12]. The presences of these
functional groups led to graphene oxide hydrophilic property which makes graphene oxide easily
dispersed in water [13,14]. Utilizing this property of high water dispersion of GO makes cement based-
materials mixing practical (more applicable than mixing cement with GO as powder). In addition, GO has
many other properties that can effectively modify cement matrix properties: high specific area, ultra-
high strength and exceptional flexibility [15–18]. There is a direct relationship between concrete
durability and the mobility of fluids within concrete. The durability can be related to the ease with which
both liquids and gasses can enter concrete [3,19] which are denied as transport properties. Transport
properties highly depend on pore size distribution, total porosity, pore connectivity and its tortuosity
[20,21]. He and Shi [22] reported that incorporation nanomaterial in cement mix has improved the
chloride penetration resistance and ion transport resistance. It would be expected that adding GO to
cement mortar could enhance its resistance to the transport of liquids and to the ingress of attacking
chemicals. In this research, Mercury Intrusion Porosimetry, water sorptivity, chloride ingress tests were
performed to assess the GO cement composite’s transport properties. 2. Materials and specimen
preparations Ordinary Portland cement Type GP (General Purpose) according to the Australian standard
AS3972 Type GP was used to make the mortar mix. The sand used for the mortar was washed sand from
Sibelco Australia and New Zealand Materials. The graphene oxide 4 mg/ml water dispersion was
supplied from Graphenea Company, Spain. The properties of GO are shown in Table 1 and Fig. 1.
Graphene oxide can be available as both of powder and colloidal dispersion [23,24]. In this research
work graphene oxide was used as water dispersion solution which makes mixing cement mortar more
convenient than mixing cement mortar with GO at powder condition. High range water reducer
admixture type HWR was used to provide good workability to the mortar mix. The control mix (with no
GO) was made following the mix proportions shown in Table 2. GO was incorporated in the cement
mixture at three different percentages namely, 0.01%, 0.03% and, 0.06% by weight of cement. The exact
fraction of graphene oxide was calculated based on the graphene oxide concentration in the aqueous
solution as shown in Table 2. At each mix of mortar with GO a part of normal mix water was substitute
with graphene oxide aqueous solution to keep the amount of mixing water constant at all mixes. The dry
contents were first mixed for 2 min in the electric mixer at moderate speed. Water content is constant
(310 ml) in each mix as shown in Table 2. In a separate container, Distilled water was mixed with GO and
mechanically stirred for 2 min. Then, GO solution was added to dry contents and stirred for 3 and 2 min
at high and moderate speeds respectively. The fresh mixture was poured into cylinder moulds with the
dimensions of u100 200 mm and compacted to remove the entrapped air. After that, the specimens
were air cured for 24 h while still in the mould. Finally, all specimens were demoulded and moist cured
at room temperature for 28 days.

Incorporating graphene oxide in cement composites: A study of transport properties A. Mohammed

Graphene is the basic structural unit for graphitic materials of any dimension. It is composed of a single-
layer sheet of carbon atoms closely packed into a two-dimensional (2D) (with thickness of 0.335 nm)
honeycomb framework [19]. It can be wrapped up into 0D fullerenes, rolled into 1D nanotubes or
stacked into 3D graphite [20] (Fig. 1). Although the rapid progress on graphene-based cementitious
composites has benefited from the relatively mature research on other carbon-based nanomaterials,
especially carbon nanotubes (CNTs) [20], the use of graphene in concrete has some intrinsic advantages
over them. Compared to CNTs, for example, graphene is: 2-dimensional, presenting larger specific
surface area (SSA); easier to produce in large quantities with fully reproducible properties; less
hazardous for health and environment; and more easily dispersed in a media [21,22]; which makes it
more attractive for various applications in construction materials. Different forms of GNS, with
properties and microstructure derived from pristine graphene, are also often employed in construction
materials. Graphene oxide (GO), the most researched GNS in cement composites, also consists of
monolayer sheets with a hexagonal carbon network. The main difference from graphene is that GO
bears hydroxyl, epoxide, carboxyl and carbonyl functional groups on its surface and thus exhibits higher
reactivity with cement and superior dispersion in the matrix, making it attractive for cementitious
composites [23,24]. Reduced graphene oxide (rGO) has less functional groups in its structure as
compared to GO, presenting intermediate properties between GO and graphene. Graphene
nanoplatelets (GNPs) are comprised of layers of graphene sheets (typically 10 < n < 100, with n being
number of layers) with thickness

Graphene-based nanosheets for stronger and more durable concrete:

A review Ezzatollah Shamsae