The effect of hardened properties of mortar containing palm oil fuel ash (POFA) as partial sand replacement / Nur Shafiqah Md Sa’at

The necessity of natural resource which is sand for construction industry due to the rapid growth of urbanization and industrialization in Malaysia has led to serious environmental pollution resulting from growing activities in sand mining. Palm oil fuel ash (POFA) is a waste product generated by palm oil industry and discarded in the landfill which it be a pollution waste to the environment. Thus, the use of POFA will solve the solid waste problem in Malaysia. POFA is a pozzolanic material and can serve as a partial replacement for sand. Therefore, this study investigates the effect of hardened properties of mortar containing POFA as partial sand replacement on the tensile strength and durability properties which is water absorption and porosity. Four mixture of mortar containing 0%, 5%, 10% and 15% of POFA by weight of sand were used in this experiment. The cylinder specimens were cast and undergoes curing process up to 3, 7 and 28 days before tensile splitting testing, water absorption and porosity testing. Outcome of this study shows that the higher amount of POFA in the mortar reduces the strength and durability of the mortar. However, it was noted that 5% of POFA is the optimum amount to be used as partial sand replacement which can enhance the performance of mortar strength and durability.