Rice husk cement

n the primitive times pucca house used to be constructed using bricks and for joinery and plastering materials like lime, surkhi (brick powder), waste of jaggery production (molasses), finely ground slurry of urad dal were used. These materials were mixed in certain ratio and processed which required labour and skill. The forts and historical buildings several hundred years old are testimony of durability and strength of these materials. Recently, it has been found that waste water obtained while cooking rice and lime were used during construction of great China wall which has good bonding strength.

Rice husk

The housing changed with passage of time with advent of modern building materials like cement setting. Due to spurt in housing construction activities the cost of building materials has increased. The organizations like Central Building Research Institute Roorkee (CBRI) and Advanced Materials and Processes Research Institute (AMPRI), Bhopal carried out Research and Development work for low cost housing alternate building materials using agricultural wastes like rice husk (which has more than 70% silica), clay, lime and industrial wastes like red mud of Aluminium Industry. The cost of cement which is used for RCC work, joinery and plastering is increasing every day. It is high time to use cheaper but dependable substitutes. One such material is rice husk cement.

Process
In the process for production of rice husk cement, rice husk, lime and clay are mixed in ratio of 50:25:25 by weight and slurry is using water. Subsequently nodules/round balls of 5-10 cm diameter are made manually in cottage scale operation and by using noduliser in mechanized unit. The balls/ nodules are sun-dried and later fired in a trench kiln. Except initial burning no fuel is required due to heat of combustion of rice husk.

The sintered burnt material is micro-pulverised. The grinding process is continued for 45-50 minutes to get fine mesh 4000 cm/g.

In the AMPRI process of red mud, rice husk and coarse sand (murram) are mixed in prescribed ratio and fired in a kiln. The ash so obtained is ground with slacked lime using micropulverisers. The pulverized material is then weight and packed bags for marketing. The rice hush cement could be used for joinery, plastering, soil stabilization, stabilized bricks etc. but not recommended for RCC/Roofing construction. It may be noted that sludge of industry could be also used. The hydraulic rice husk binder has a bulk density of 360 kg/m, which increases to 700 kg/ m on grinding.

Techno-economics
Raw materials Clay Lime Rice husk Rice mud Available locally Available locally From rice mills From aluminium industries

Equipment and machinery

Kiln, ball mill, noduliser, pulveriser, sieves, weighing machines and product testing equipments.

Kiln

Nodulizer

Pulveriser

Physical Characteristics
(a) Fineness = 150 micron (retention not more than 15%) (b) Std. Consistency = 38.5% (c) Setting time 1. Initial = 2-3 hours 2. Final = 10-13 hours (d) Comp. Strength 1. At 7 days 2. At 28 days = 2-3 N/mm2 = 4-6 N/mm2

(e) Shrinkage = 1.0mm

Costing of machinery
5-6 lakhs.

Production capacity
5T/day The cost of production varies from place to place depending upon availability of wastes like sludge, lime, rice husk etc. The selling price will be 1/3rd of present marketing price of cement. Source of Technology CBRI Roorkee and AMPRI Bhopal M. S. Virdi Ex-Director, CSIR, Bhopal. H-15, Sterling Castles, Hoshangabad Road, Bhopal. E-mail: virdim@yahoo.com
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