Reuse of Uncontrolled Burnt Bagasse Ash from Sugar Industries with Waste Rubber Powder in Construction: A Waste to Wealth Approach for Sugar Mills

Sugar industries generate large quantities of sugarcane bagasse ash as a by-product, which is subsequently landfilled despite its potential to be used as a supplementary cementitious material in concrete, similar to the currently used rice husk ash. Even though the pozzolanic nature of bagasse ash is known, the performance of bagasse ash along with other industrial by-products such as tire rubber powder in construction products has not yet been investigated. Hence, the combined use of uncontrolled burnt sugarcane bagasse ash as a supplementary cementitious material and rubber tire powder as fine aggregate for the development of cement concrete and alkali-activated concrete with minimum characteristic compressive strength 35 MPa is investigated in the present study. It was observed that a maximum of 10% unprocessed bagasse ash along with 10% rubber powder could be used in concrete paver blocks. Besides, 30% unprocessed bagasse ash by weight of the binder can be used along with 10% rubber powder in the case of alkali-activated concrete. Together, up to 40% of the ingredients in alkali-activated concrete were effectively replaced with bagasse ash and rubber powder. The influence of different parameters on the performance of alkali-activated binders was also investigated and the optimum performance was witnessed for specimens activated with 8 M sodium-based activators and cured at ambient conditions. Therefore, bagasse ash and waste rubber tire powder can be used as value-added products in construction instead of their disposal as waste.