Lyra, G.P.; Colombo, A.L.; Duran, A.J.F.P.; Parente, I.M.S.; Bueno, C.; Rossignolo, J.A. The Use of Sargassum spp. Ashes Like a Raw Material for Mortar Production: Composite Performance and Environmental Outlook. Materials2024, 17, 1785.
Lyra, G.P.; Colombo, A.L.; Duran, A.J.F.P.; Parente, I.M.S.; Bueno, C.; Rossignolo, J.A. The Use of Sargassum spp. Ashes Like a Raw Material for Mortar Production: Composite Performance and Environmental Outlook. Materials 2024, 17, 1785.
Lyra, G.P.; Colombo, A.L.; Duran, A.J.F.P.; Parente, I.M.S.; Bueno, C.; Rossignolo, J.A. The Use of Sargassum spp. Ashes Like a Raw Material for Mortar Production: Composite Performance and Environmental Outlook. Materials2024, 17, 1785.
Lyra, G.P.; Colombo, A.L.; Duran, A.J.F.P.; Parente, I.M.S.; Bueno, C.; Rossignolo, J.A. The Use of Sargassum spp. Ashes Like a Raw Material for Mortar Production: Composite Performance and Environmental Outlook. Materials 2024, 17, 1785.
Abstract
The accumulation of brown algae from the genus Sargassum has been increasing over the years in coastal regions of the Caribbean, Africa, Brazil, and Mexico. This causes harmful effects to the ecosystem, health, economy, and climate due to gas emissions from its decomposition process. There is the possibility of this biomass being reused in civil construction, and few studies have been carried out on its application to common Portland cement mortar. As such, the objective of this study is to evaluate the potential of sargassum ash as a mineral addition to partial replacement of fine aggregates in Portland cement mortar. Characterizations of the raw materials were carried out through X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy, loss on ignition, particle size distribution, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller (BET), real density, X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and dispersion spectroscopy of electrons. The mortars were prepared by partially replacing the fine aggregate (sand) with sargassum ash, at 0%, 5%, 10% and 20%. Mortar performance was evaluated through water absorption, apparent porosity, apparent specific mass, compressive strength after 7, 28, and 63 days after curing. Lastly, a life cycle assessment in accordance with ISO standards 14040:2006 and 14044:2006. The results showed that replacing sand with sargassum ash increases water absorption, apparent porosity, and decreases the apparent specific mass and compressive strength as replacement increases. Nevertheless, the compressive strength results after 63 days, for 5 and 10% replacement did not differ statistically from reference values. The life cycle assessment indicates that mortars with partial replacement of sand by sargassum ash showed positive environmental impacts when compared to reference values for most categories regardless of the scenario analyzed, especially for mortar with 10% replacement. As such, the use of sargassum ash at 10% does not alter compressive strength values after 63 days while reducing its environmental impact. The application of this biomass in civil construction materials provides a destination for this algae that has been causing several social, environmental, and economic problems.
Engineering, Architecture, Building and Construction
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
,
