Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Development Conference (TISD2008) Faculty of Engineering, Khon Kaen University, Thailand 28-29

January 2008

Effects of Rice Husk Ash on Characteristics of Lightweight Clay Brick

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Danupon Tonnayopas1*, Perapong Tekasakul2 and Sarawut Jaritgnam3 Department of Mining and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Prince of Songkla University, Hat-Yai 90112 2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Prince of Songkla University, Hat-Yai 90112 3 Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Prince of Songkla University, Hat-Yai 90112 E-mail: danupon.t@psu.ac.th*

Abstract
The effects of rice husk ash (RHA) addition on the physical and mechanical properties of the lightweight building fired clay bricks were investigated. Different proportions of RHA from 10-50% by mass were mixed to the raw brick-clay. Higher RHA addition required a higher water content to ensure the right dry density. All test specimens were produced by uniaxial hydraulic press method and fired at 1050C. The samples were tested by according to Thai Industrial Standard (TIS) methods and compared with its specifications. Up to 30% RHA addition was found to meet TIS. It can be utilized in fired building bricks by taking advantage of low cost and environmental protection. Keywords: Rice husk ash, Lightweight clay brick, Physical and mechanical properties, Electrical resistance

for clay bricks [10, 11]. Rahman [12] investigated properties of clay-sand-mixes different percentages of RHA and burnt at 1000C for 2, 4 and 6 hours. He obtained lightweight brick with optimum firing duration of 4 h and used in load bearing walls. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effects of RHA addition on the properties of fired building bricks, without degrading their properties based upon the Thai Industrial Standard (TIS) [13]. , was accumulated during rice processing on the plants,

2. Materials and Methods

RHA collected from a local rice mill, Na Mom district, Songkhla, Thailand. It was burnt in open air ambient. Upon collection, the RHA sample was dried in an oven at 100C for one day. A clayey soil (CS) sample was contributed from a local conventional brick manufacturing plant, Ban Pru, Hat-Yai. The basic physicochemical characteristics, including particle size distribution was measured by sedimentation technique with a laser scattering particle size analyzer model LS 230, Small Volume Module Plus of Beckman Coulter, pH, basic chemical elements based on X-ray fluorescence (XRF). The differential thermal analysis (DTA) of the RHA sample was simultaneously conducted in a DTA model PerkinElmer, DTA7 instrument operating under a flow of nitrogen (20 ml/min) and heating rate of 10C/min until the maximum temperature of 1300C, and particle true density were determined by using a Multipycnometer model MUP-2 Quata chrome apparatus. A CS sample derived from crushed normal brick clay was obtained from a local brick manufacturing plant. Upon collection, it was ground with a crushing machine. Particle size of rice husk ash and brick clay were determined with laser scattering particle size analyzer (LS 230, Small Volume Module Plus of Beckman Coulter). The pH values of brick CS and RHA were determined by mixing of 20 g in distilled water 30mL for a beaker 50mL then settled for 20 h before mixture solution was measured in potential and ion pH Redox. The RHA and brick CS powder were prepared by cone crusher and then ball milling for 6 h, sieving

1. Introduction
Large amount of paddy production and the development of agro-based industries in many countries of the world have brought about the production of large quantities of rice wastes, most of which are not adequately managed and utilized. Rice husk wastes were used for animal feed, fertilizer and fuel for energy production, but little work has been carried out to develop utilization of rice husk ash (RHA) in the production of fired clay brick. The needs to conserve traditional clay bricks that are facing depletion have obliged engineers to look for alternative materials [1, 2]. Environmentally friendly, energy saving recycle property of material production has been one of the very important research purposes for decades [3, 4, 5]. Owing to environmental regulations, the demand for high insulation ability bricks is increasing [6]. Thermal conductivity is a decisive factor for the heatengineering concept of thermal insulating material [7]. One method of increasing the insulation ability of brick is generating porosity in clay body. However, combustible, organic residues of pore-forming additives are most frequently used for this purpose [8, 9]. Furthermore, several types of ash are also utilized

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at 200 mesh. Atterberg limits was conducted to obtain the plastic nature of the brick CS according to ASTM D 4318 [14] and compacted various proportions of RHA and brick clay mixture to establish the optimum moisture content (OMC) in humidifying the brick making process (Table 1) [15]. The RHA-brick clay powder mixtures were composed for 1 h in a jar mill then prepared in batches and used axially hydraulic press 1.00 MPa (10 bars) into a series of Thai standard brick molds (140 mm 65 mm 60 mm). A brick clay (CS) only mixture was prepared as a reference specimen. The molded specimens were airdried at room temperature for 24 h, and then oven dried at 1005C for another 24 h to remove the water content, all of the mold green specimens were fired at optimized 1050C [11] in a electrical furnace under heating rate of 2C/min from room temperature to 500C soaking 30 minutes and adjusted rate of 5C/min until the maximum temperature, followed by 1 h soaking. The specimens were cooled to room temperature in the furnace. As required by the TIS-77 procedure for building bricks, the produced solid bricks then subjected to a series of test, including firing shrinkage, weight load on ignition (ASTM C62), water absorption, bulk density, and cold crushing strength [13]. The experimental results obtained on at least ten fired specimens for all categories. The water absorption capacity was determined according to TIS procedure. Table 1. Elaborated RHA bricks mixtures and humidity. Mixture OMC Raw materials (wt%) % Items CS RHA CS or RHA0 100 0 21.80 RHA10 90 10 22.80 RHA20 80 20 24.20 RHA30 70 30 25.60 RHA40 60 40 26.21 RHA50 50 50 26.98 The bulk density was measured dividing the dry mass by the average external volume. Linear shrinkage was determined by the brick length after drying at 110C and the brick length after firing at a temperature stages using a Vernier caliper OKURA (precision 0.05 mm). The crushing strength using a ELE International test machine of 272 t capacity at 85.5-208.2 kg/cm2/s loading rate.

harmfully and prolong the useful life of electric coil in furnace. The particle size distribution of RHA and CS are relatively same significant and poor grading (Figure 1). The uniform distributions are rather similar and the main feature significance is the generally larger particle sizes in the RHA (between 1 and 31 m, with average particle size of 21 m, whereas in the CS of 1-31 m with average is 20 m).
100 90

Cumulative Passing (%)

80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 1

Clayey Soil Rice Husk Ash

10

100

Diameter (Micron)

Figure 1. Particle size distribution of raw materials. Table 2. Major chemical composition of raw materials, as determined by XRF (wt.%). Physicochemical properties (%) RHA CS Silicon dioxide, SiO2 48.16 58.11 Aluminium oxide, Al2O3 0.18 17.88 Iron oxide, Fe2O3 0.29 8.58 Potassium oxide, K2O 28.55 5.98 Phosphate pentoxide, P2O5 3.85 Calcium oxide, CaO 2.36 0.13 Magnesium oxide, MgO 3.96 1.22 Titanium dioxide, TiO2 1.86 Manganese dioxide, MnO2 1.39 0.30 Sulfur trioxide, SO3 1.73 Loss on ignition 0.14 0.28 pH 9.97 3.40 True density, g/cm3 2.98 2.62 However, in the DTA result of RHA displayed endotherm at 336.82 C and phase later of exotherm at 872.73 C (Figure 2). It can be noted that the two phases of RHA was might be constituted of almost single composition or occurred non-recrystallization.

3. Result and Discussion

The RHA has major oxide compositions such as SiO2, K2O and CaO and minor contents of Fe, Ca, and Na oxides Al2O3 of (Table 2), were in range of refractory materials (ASTM C 618). RHA and brick clay had been a pH of 9.97 and 3.40, respectively. It is indicated that mixture materials can be treated as neural materials. Upon that, it can be reduced

Temperature (C)

Figure 2. DTA pattern of RHA.

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The water absorption of RHA brick has ranged from 9.63% of normal brick (CS) to 41.22% of RHA50 brick. It can be observed that the increase in the RHA replacement give rise to an increase in the water absorption (Figure 3). According to TIS-37 the maximum allowed value of water absorption is 25% for the first-class building brick and below 15% for second-class category use of the brick. The RHA proportion effect on the linear shrinkage (Figure 4) is completely different to that observed for the weigh loss (Figure 5). Less linear shrinkage is a factor that may contribute to reduce the risk of appearance of cracks and dimensional defects in bricks. On the other hand, an excessive amount of RHA can promote cracks due to low particle bonding and, consequently, reduce the mechanical strength.
50 45

On the contrary, bulk density ranged from 1.13 g/cm3 (RHA50) up to a maximum of 1.88 g/cm3 (CS). The increase in the amount of RHA addition causes a reduction in the brick density (Figure 6). The main reason for such a result is the burning of RHA addition as an organic material which can easily burn out during the sintering period. In the viewpoint, electrical resistance confirmed the behavior of thermal insulation brick (Figure 7). Cold crushing strength (CCS) values vary from 3.76 to 37.09 MPa, where the highest values are displayed for the specimens with RHA0 brick. All values show dramatically decrease in CCS with an increase in the replacement of CS content (Figure 8).
2.2 2.0

Bulk Density (%)

1.8 1.6 1.4 1.2 1.0 0.8 0.6

Water Absorption (%)

40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 10 20 30 40 50

10

20

30

40

50

Rice Husk Ash Content (%)

Figure 6. Bulk density of RHA bricks.

E le c tric a l R e s ista n c e ( M e g a O h m /c m ) 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 10 20 30 Rice Husk Ash Content (%) 40 50

Rice Husk Ash Content (%)

Figure 3. Water absorption of RHA bricks.

3.5 3.0

Linear Shrinkage (%)

2.5 2.0 1.5 1.0 0.5 0.0 0 10 20 30 40 50

Rice Husk Ash Content (%)

Figure 7. Electrical resistance of RHA bricks.

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Figure 4. Linear shrinkage of RHA bricks.

Compressive Strength (MPa)

35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 0 10 20 30 40 50

35 30

Weight Loss (%)

25 20 15 10 5 0

Rice Husk Ash Content (%)

Figure 8. Cold crushing strength of RHA bricks.

0 10 20 30 40 50

Rice Husk Ash Content (%)

Figure 5. Weight loss of RHA bricks

RHA addition increases the required water content for plasticity (Table 1). Particle size characteristics of the RHA do not create any problem during shaping at used addition levels.

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Moreover, RHA is easily burnt out and it has wide range burning from the clay body during firing. No black coring and bloating were observed in texture after firing. Based on the results in Figure 3 the water absorption for only bricks mixed 30-50% RHA is higher than 25%, and thus they are not met TIS-77. An increase in the content of the RHA addition leads to an decrease in the firing linear shrinkage (Figure 4). Firing weight loss increased as the amount of RHA additive increased (Figure 5). Also an increase of RHA leads to an increase in the open porosity and this effect decreased the bulk density (Figure 6) and improved the thermal insulating properties with confirm of measuring electrical resistance behavior (Figure 7), particularly at 40-50% RHA. In addition to CCS values decrease with increasing the amount of RHA additive (Figure 8). A 90% reduction in the CCS of control brick is obtained from the 50%RHA replacement (RHA50). Therefore, these values meet the TIS-77 required specification on fired bricks (>3.5 MPa).

4. Conclusions
This investigation had demonstrated a feasible way of using incinerated RHA as brick clay to produce a high quality brick. Organic characteristics of RHA give extra contribution to the heat input of the furnace. According to test results, a mixture of up to 50% RHA additives by weight can be used in building fired brick production, particularly for lightweight brick. The most economical firing temperature was determined as 1050C. RHA can be used as an organic kind of pore-forming additive in the clay body without any harmful effect on the other brick manufacturing parameters. Usage of RHA material in the clay mixture improved the physical and mechanical properties. The use of RHA waste in brick production provides an economical contribution and also serves as the energy efficiency materials for building. It is indicated that RHA could be an alternative raw material to production of clay bricks and friendly environments.

Acknowledgments
This research has been supported by a grant Promotion of Energy Conservation Fund at 95/2547 under contract number Project 03-178-47-71 of the Energy Policy and Planning Office (EPPO), Ministry of Energy, Thailand.

References
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