Alkali activated concretes have emerged as a prospective alternative to conventional concrete wherein diverse waste materials have been converted as valuable spin-offs. This paper presents a wide experimental study on the sustainability of employing waste sawdust as a fine/coarse aggregate replacement incorporating fly ash (FA) and granulated blast furnace slag (GBFS) to make high-performance cement-free lightweight concretes. Waste sawdust was replaced with aggregate at 0, 25, 50, 75, and 100 vol% incorporating alkali binder, including 70% FA and 30% GBFS. The blend was activated using a low sodium hydroxide concentration (2 M). The acoustic, thermal, and predicted engineering properties of concretes were evaluated, and the life cycle of various mixtures were calculated to investigate the sustainability of concrete. Besides this, by using the available experimental test database, an optimized Artificial Neural Network (ANN) was developed to estimate the mechanical properties of the designed alkali-activated mortar mixes depending on each sawdust volume percentage. Based on the findings, it was found that the sound absorption and reduction in thermal conductivity were enhanced with increasing sawdust contents. The compressive strengths of the specimens were found to be influenced by the sawdust content and the strength dropped from 65 to 48 MPa with the corresponding increase in the sawdust levels from 0% up to 100%. The results also showed that the emissions of carbon dioxide, energy utilization, and outlay tended to drop with an increase in the amount of sawdust and show more the lightweight concrete to be more sustainable for construction applications.

Engineering Properties of Waste Sawdust-Based Lightweight Alkali-Activated Concrete: Experimental Assessment and Numerical Prediction.

https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/files/62964145/Wastewood_final_revised.pdf

Waste wood as bioenergy feedstock. Climate change impacts and related emission uncertainties from waste wood based energy systems in the UK

Abstract This study presents the use of sawdust ash as a substitute in the production of sustainable building materials. Inappropriate dispose of wood-waste causes serious environmental problems as it results in atmospheric degradation, emissions of greenhouse gases and the destruction of aquatic and organic products. This review article combines research results from past studies into the usage of sawdust as an alternative for essential elements in construction composites. The result of this study shows that structural concrete can be manufactured with compressive strengths more than 20 MPa by replacing moderately 5–17% of the sand with sawdust or 5–15% of the cement with sawdust ash. By partially substituting sawdust that ranges between 10 and 30% of sand used in the production of blocks and bricks, sawdust blocks and bricks having compressive strengths greater than 3 MPa can be created. According to the findings of this study, sawdust has the potential to make construction composites that are strong, absorb water, and have an elastic modulus that meet international standards. The study concludes that sawdust composites are intriguing due to having hushed heat conductivity, a prominent sound absorption, as well as efficient sound wadding. From the findings, it is demonstrated that an increase in the utilization of sawdust for construction purposes will reduce the possibility of sawdust as a pollution to the environment, and will also ease the costs of disposal. 

/pdf/utilization-of-sawdust-composites-in-construction-a-review-25b07ls7.pdf

Utilization of sawdust composites in construction—a review

This study investigates the effect of partially replacing fine aggregate with wood waste in concrete mixes in order to preserve natural resources (i.e., sand) and reduce the disposal of wood waste into landfill. A total of 81 specimens were prepared and divided into two groups based on their w/c ratio, namely: Group 1 with w/c = 0.46, and Group 2 with w/c = 0.42. Each group has two different percentages of replacement of fine aggregates (i.e., 5% and 7%). And each percentage was tested in two batches; namely raw wood waste and Silane-treated wood waste. The absorption, compressive strength, and tensile strength were measured for all the specimens. In addition, morphological and interfacial bonding analyses were implemented by running SEM and FTIR tests. The results show that replacing the fine aggregate with wood waste increases the absorption of the concrete mix up to 300% in certain mixes. The tensile strength was affected depending on the wood waste percentages. However, incorporating wood waste in concrete mixes reduced its compressive strength up to 65.5%. The Silane treatment of the wood waste improves the mechanical properties, as well as, the impermeability of the produced mix when compared with the raw wood waste specimens. The microstructural and interaction mechanism analyses revealed the formation of high content of ettringite and air voids in concrete with raw chippings, which negatively affect the mechanical properties of the mixture. It is recommended to avoid using raw wood waste in concrete mixes since it significantly harms its mechanical properties. 

Valorization of hydrophobic wood waste in concrete mixtures: Investigating the micro and macro relations

A considerable proportion (about 64%) of biomass energy is produced from woody biomass (wood and its wastes). However, waste wood (WW) is very often contaminated with metal(loid) elements at concentrations leading to toxicity emissions and damages to facilities during thermal conversion. Therefore, procedures for preventing and/or alleviating the negative impacts of these elements require further development, particularly by providing informative and supportive information regarding the phase transformations of the metal(loid)s during thermal conversion processes. Although it is well known that phase transformation depends on different factors such as elements’ vaporization characteristics, operational conditions, and process configuration; however, the influences of reaction atmosphere composition in terms of interactions and interferences are rarely addressed. In response, since Cu, Cr, and As (CCA-elements) are the most regulated elements in woody biomass, this paper aims to explore the possible interactions and interferences among CCA-elements themselves and with Ca, Na, S, Cl, Fe, and Ni from reaction atmosphere composition perspectives during the gasification of contaminated WW. To do so, thermodynamic equilibrium calculations were performed for Boudouard reaction (BR) and partial combustion reaction (PCR) with temperature ranges of 0–1300 °C and 0–1800 °C, respectively, and both reactions were simulated under pressure conditions of 1, 20, and 40 atm. Refinement of the occurred interactions and interferences reveals that Ni-As interactions generate dominant species As2Ni5 and As8Ni11, which increase the solid–gaseous transformation temperature of As. Moreover, the interactions between Ca and Cr predominantly form C3Cr7; whereas the absence of Ca leads to Cr2Na2O4 causing instability in the Cr phase transformation.

Possible Interactions and Interferences of Copper, Chromium, and Arsenic during the Gasification of Contaminated Waste Wood

Biomass is a generic term for a wide range of organic materials, including wood, which is used to generate electricity and/or heat. Waste wood is just one form of biomass for which there is rapidly growing interest in the UK. An overview is provided of the issues involved in the generation, processing and use of wood waste as biomass.

Role of wood waste as source of biomass fuel in the UK

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Role of wood waste as source of biomass fuel in the UK