Reclamation of wastewater and sludge for concrete making

✍ Scribed by Joo-Hwa Tay

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1989
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 755 KB
• Volume: 2
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0921-3449
• DOI: 10.1016/0921-3449(89)90026-8

✦ Synopsis

Sludge is an unavoidable product of wastewater treatment and creates problems of disposal. For highly urbanised cities, incineration of sludge might be a viable solution for sludge disposal. After incineration, a large quantity of ash is produced and must be disposed of by other means. The feasibility of using pulverised sludge ash (PSA) as construction material was studied. The results indicate that PSA could be used as a partial replacement for cement in concrete as a means of waste disposal and resource recovery.

Reclaimed wastewater can be used as mixing water for concrete. Reclaimed wastewater does not affect the properties of concrete, such as segregation, shrinkage, water absorption, bulk density, and setting times. The compressive strengths increase slightly at early ages from cubes cast with higher percentages of reclaimed wastewater as compared with those cast with potable water. However, at ages of three months or beyond, compressive strengths are similar. The properties of PSA concrete using reclaimed wastewater for mixing are similar to those of PSA concrete with potable water.