Recent Advances in Coal Bottom Ash Use as a New Common Portland Cement Constituent

New additions to cement will help to obtain sustainable and durable construction materials. One of these new Portland cement constituents could be coal bottom ash. Currently, it is dumped as waste, provoking an environmental problem. However, shows how this material can be used as the main constituent of Portland cement when it is mixed in an optimized proportion with fly ash. Therefore, this study may also be considered as a pre-standardization work to meet, partially, an environmental demand of society. The compressive strength and durable characteristics of standardized mortars made of coal combustion bottom and fly ash are to mortars made of GEM I 42,5 N according to the European standard EN 197-1:2011, which is used as reference. The mortars made up of bottom ash, fly ash and ordinary Portland cement mixes have similar proportions to the standardized ones for CEM II/A-V, CEM II/B-V and CEM IV/A (V) cements. It was concluded that the utilization of bottom ash mixed with fly ash does not modify the compressive strength or durable characteristics of the mortars studied in this research program.