Rice husk ash burnt in simple conditions for soil stabilization

Vinh Phu Pham

Thuyloi University, Hanoi, Vietnam. E-mail: phamphuvinh@tlu.edu.vn
Viet The Tran
Thuyloi University, Hanoi, Vietnam. E-mail: trantheviet@tlu.edu.vn

Keywords: rice husk ash, soil stabilization, pozzolan, pozzolanic reaction

ABSTRACT: Rice hush ash (RHA) is a pozzolanic material and can be used in the lime treatment for soil
stabilization without strict requirements of burning conditions. In this study, 3 samples of RHA collected
from burning rice husk and 1 sample from burning rice husk firewood were considered. Their reactivity
was identified in experiments with saturated lime solution. The results showed that they are classified as
none to variable pozzolanicity. To evaluate their effect on the lime treatment on clayed soil, two sets of
experiments were performed. The first set used 3 samples including the one from rice husk firewood and
mixed with lime in the ratio of 1:1. The second set used the other sample combined with coal slag and
lime. The results show that replacing partly the lime by RHA can give the same or even higher shear
strength than that of using only lime, despite the results of low activity. Therefore, using RHA from
simple burning conditions for soil stabilization is an effective and economical option.

1. INTRODUCTION promising results. Among the research of various

Rice husk ash (RHA) is a promising pozzolanic
material produced by burning rice husk (RH). It
can be used to replace cement as a binder in
concrete (UNIDO, 1984; Cook, 1986; Malhotra &
Mehta, 1996) or in soil improvement applications
(Basha et al., 2005; Muntohar, 2006; Karatai et al.,
2017). The main component of RHA, which is
responsible for its cementing behavior is
amorphous silica. The amorphous silica in RHA is
a pozzolanic material, which means that it reacts
under moist conditions with calcium hydroxide to
form compounds with cementing properties
(Malhotra; and Mehta, 1996). Among the various
pozzolanic materials, RHA is categorized to be the
most reactive (Agarwal, 2006; Walker; and Pavía,
2011).
Thanks to the pozzolanic activity, RHA is used
as an additive in combination with lime (calcium
hydroxide), for soil improvement and has shown
authors (Seco et al., 2011) demonstrated that
mixing lime and RHA with an expansive soil from
Tudela, Spain resulted in significant improvement
of strength and reduction of the swelling capacity.
Further research on expansive soil has been
established to evaluate the optimized mixture of
RHA and other binders (Ashango and Patra, 2016;
Liu et al., 2019). Some researchers intended to
produce high quality ash for the experiments
(Choobbasti et al., 2010), while others used
uncontrolled burning conditions, either by
collecting the ash from energy plants (Muntohar,
2002; Seco et al., 2011) or just by burning the
husks directly at the rice mills in open fire (Haji
Ali et al., 1992) or by using an incinerator (Basha
et al., 2005; Muntohar, 2006). Interestingly in all
the cases, the soil strength was considerably
improved.
Using RHA as an additive for soil improvement
in the lime treatment appears not to require strict

© Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 717

P. Duc Long and N. T. Dung (eds.) et al., Geotechnics for Sustainable
Infrastructure Development, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 62,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-2184-3_93
718
burning conditions, so it is possible to take full
advantage of the RH as a fuel source and then the
RHA as a pozzolanic material in such the
applications. Besides, combining RHA with other
local material such as coal slag can also help to
increase the effectiveness of the lime treatment
method as coal slag also has pozzolanic
characteristic while it can play the role of filler. For
this research interest, this paper presents the study
of RHA collected from both burning raw RH and
commercial RH firewood in simple conditions for
soil stabilization, in consideration of combining
with coal slag. Effect of the RHA in the lime
treatment method on the soil will be compared to
draw conclusions about the efficiency of using
local RH and RHA materials.
2. METHODS
2.1 Materials
2.1.1 Soil preparation
Silty clay samples from a field in the neighborhood
of Hanoi was collected and dried in the open air for
one day. After that, they were manually crushed
and sieved through the 2mm sieve. The soil was
then mixed with water so its state was about the
liquid limit state, corresponding water content was
45%. This soil is now ready for the lime treatment
with RHA and coal slag.
2.1.2 Rice husk and the commercial RH firewood
Rice husk was collected from local households of
farmers in Quang Binh province. The rice husk
firewood was bought from the market in the form
of about 40 cm length cylinders (Fig. 1), the brand
is Thai Binh company of Rice Husk Firewood. The
average density of the RH firewood is about 1400
kg/m3, the duration for complete burning is about 3
hours, the residual RHA is about 12-15 weight %.
Figure 1. The commercial rice hush firewood
V. P. Pham and V. T. Tran
2.1.3 RHA from burning the RH
There were four types of RHA samples collected
from different burning conditions (Fig. 2):
 RHA-1: RH was burnt in limited temperature
condition. In this condition, firewood was burnt
then covered by a steel cone. In the next step,
RH was poured to cover the cone. The cone has
holes which were connected to a pipe on top of
it so it can transfer the heat to the RH but
separate the fire.
 RHA-2: RH was burnt in open fire. This is the
common manner the RH is burnt in the kitchen
of local households.
 RHA-C: This is the RHA collected from
burning the commercial RH firewood. In other
words, it is the side product of the RH firewood
and is considered for the second application of
soil stabilization.
 RHA-U: This is the RHA collected from
incomplete burning condition. The burning was
started by fire, but shortly afterward the fire was
off and the RH was left overnight to maintain
the heat itself. The temperature was not enough
to burn the RH into ash, leaving the RH in its
original shape but in black color.
All the samples were manually ground into
powder by using a grinding bowl. About 5 g of the
sample was ground in 2 minutes each time to
obtain the RHA samples for the experiments.
2.1.4 Coal slag
To take advantage of local material and also due to
the limited scale of the experiment, coal slag to be
used in this study was collected from households
those use coal as fuel in their daily life. The use of
coal still is common in Vietnamese households and
so far, the coal slag is just simply dumped, while it
still has some potential usage as it has pozzolanic
characteristic and can play the role of filler in the
mixture.
2.2 Experiments
2.2.1 RHA activity
The pozzolanic activity of the rice husk ash was
evaluated using electrical conductivity
measurement as proposed by Lúxan et al. (1989): 5
g of ash was added into 200 ml of saturated lime
solution at 40oC, which was constantly stirred.
Electrical conductivity (EC) and pH of the mixed
solution at 40oC was recorded every 30 seconds
using a benchtop recorder (Hach SensION, 7). EC