Sustainable recycled wood ash-based mortar and concrete from production to large-scale application

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The production of green thermal energy from timber biomass products, commonly known as Bioenergy, is growing in demand not only in Canada but also worldwide. However, a major problem arising from burning woody biomass is the substantial amount of ash that is being produced as a by-product, which usually ends up in landfills. Tolko co-generation facilities in Armstrong, British Columbia, produces about 20 Tonnes of boiler ash per day as their by-product. If not managed properly, the disposal of such a significant amount of wood ash may result in serious environmental and health problems. Thus, it is crucial to find a sustainable solution to this waste disposal. This research aims to discover ways to produce environment-friendly and sustainable concrete in addition to addressing the problems associated with this wood ash disposal. This project will investigate the prospects of utilizing wood ash - both fly ash and bottom ash, as partial replacements for cement in concrete in terms of both mechanical and durability properties. The proposed study will render a thorough characterization of the wood ash by Tolko, mechanical properties of mortar and concrete made partly of wood ash at different replacement levels, and durability of concrete with wood ash at optimized replacement levels. The optimized concrete mixtures will be implemented in the M & K Ready Mix compound, applied in a real-life project in collaboration with Fawdry Homes, and carefully monitored to assess their short and long-term performance. Canada does not have a standard guideline on the use of wood ash in the production of concrete yet. A limited number of guidelines/practices for such use of wood ash have been developed globally. Research results from this project will be presented during the technical committee meetings of Canadian Standards Association (CSA A23.1) and American Concrete Institute (ACI) 555 Concrete with Recycled Materials (ACI 555) committee to get their feedback and endorsement to incorporate the mix designs in CSA and ACI codes.