Influence of Palm Oil Fuel Ash (POFA) towards Fire Resistance Performance of Brick

Abstract

Material waste is one of the major problems in Malaysia. Factors such as large population growth, urbanization and rapid economic growth had contributed to the increasing of waste generation. In recent years, awareness and concern over the impact of the increase in the amount of waste in landfills has made many members of the science and technology especially in the field of engineering to adapt the waste into valuable products. Palm oil fuel ash (POFA) is a by-product from biomass thermal power plants where oil palm residues are burned to generate electricity. Since palm oil is one of the major raw materials used to produce bio-diesel, it is likely that the production of POFA will increase every year. Rapid generation of POFA causes increase in the landfill areas. Besides, the waste did not give any profit to industries because it could not be used as fertilizer. According to previous studies, it has proven that POFA is one of the agriculture waste that high potential as cement replacement because POFA is known as pozzolanic materials [1-3]. Therefore, due to these Malaysian researchers have done numerous of studies on the potential of POFA as the replacement of cement in the construction materials since POFA can act as the pozzolanic materials. In addition, the usage of POFA could reduce the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) produced by cement in concrete. Thus, this study is focusing on the usage of POFA as replacement material in the production of concrete brick. Among brick properties that have been identified in this study are density, compressive strength, water absorption and fire resistance. The percentage of POFA used as cement replacement are 0%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 25%. From this study, it was found that, the replacement of POFA in the brick production gave significant impact towards brick properties.