Ceramic waste powder: An alternative ingredient for green concrete

Producing "greener" concrete that meets various construction/industrial needs will have significant positive impacts on both the construction field and the environment. This paper investigates the use of ceramic waste powder (CWP); a waste material from the final polishing process of ceramic tiles, in producing different concrete types; conventional concrete (CV), self-compacting concrete (SCC), and geopolymer concrete. The conducted study highlights the feasibility of using CWP as a cement replacement in producing conventional concrete, as a filler and cement replacement in making SCC, and as a main binder in developing geopolymer concrete. The study signifies the promising opportunities of utilizing CWP as an alternative ingredient in producing green concrete. Different concrete mixtures were prepared and tested for various properties: slump retention for conventional concrete, flowability, passing ability, segregation resistance and viscosity for judging fresh properties of SCC. Strength development for all three concrete types, chloride ion permeability for evaluating the durability characteristics of conventional and SCC, in addition to resistivity test for the produced geopolymer. Results indicated that CWP can be used 10-30% as partial replacement of cement in CV, and 40% in SCC for producing concrete with acceptable fresh and hardened properties. While for the geopolymer a main conclusion was the use of alkali activating solutions with a concentration of 12M to obtain compressive strength for structural applications.