The incorporation of wood waste ash as a partial cement replacement material for making structural grade concrete: An overview

With increasing industrialization, the industrial byproducts (wastes) are being accumulated to a large extent, leading to environmental and economic concerns related to their disposal (land filling). Wood ash is the residue produced from the incineration of wood and its products (chips, saw dust, bark) for power generation or other uses. Cement is an energy extensive industrial commodity and leads to the emission of a vast amount of greenhouse gases, forcing researchers to look for an alternative, such as a sustainable building practice. This paper presents an overview of the work and studies done on the incorporation of wood ash as partial replacement of cement in concrete from the year 1991 to 2012. The aspects of wood ash such as its physical, chemical, mineralogical and elemental characteristics as well as the influence of wood ash on properties such as workability, water absorption, compressive strength, flexural rigidity test, split tensile test, bulk density, chloride permeability, freeze thaw and acid resistance of concrete have been discussed in detail.