Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: P3 Design Project for an Interdisciplinary Team of Graduate Students: Development of Appropriate, Sustainable Construction Materials
EPA Grant Number: SU831818Title: P3 Design Project for an Interdisciplinary Team of Graduate Students: Development of Appropriate, Sustainable Construction Materials
Investigators: Mihelcic, James R. , Harris, Ronald A. , Dam, Thomas Van , Vidor, Andrew , Seifert, Christopher , Pranger, Curtis , Womack-Richardson, Edith , Muga, Helen , Walker, James , Betz, Kristen , Abdi, Solomon , Eatmon, Thomas
Institution: Michigan Technological University , Southern University and A & M College
EPA Project Officer: Page, Angela
Phase: I
Project Period: September 30, 2004 through May 30, 2005
Project Amount: $10,000
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2004) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: P3 Challenge Area - Chemical Safety , Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , P3 Awards , Sustainable and Healthy Communities
Objective:
In only 12 years — from 1987 to 1999 — the world’s population increased by 20 percent, from 5 to 6 billion. This growth, combined with dramatic increases in per capita resource consumption, contributes to increasingly serious social and environmental problems. These problems will only worsen over the next 50 years as the projected world population nears 9 billion and developing nations become more industrialized.
The overall purpose of Phase I of this design project was to investigate the feasibility of substituting natural pozzolans for Portland cement in the construction of engineering infrastructure in the developing world. The evaluation criteria used in this Phase 1 study included: workability, strength, availability, economic, societal concerns, and environmental impact. In particular “high tech” solutions which are not sustainable on a long-term basis in most of the developing world were forgone, and instead students learned to apply “appropriate technology” — defined as the use of materials and technology that are culturally, economically, and socially suitable to the area in which they are implemented.
The use of a natural pozzolans for hydraulic cement began in prehistoric times, and was abandoned for western-based Portland cement concrete technology in the early 1900’s. In recent years incorporation of natural pozzolans into engineering materials has been largely supplanted by pozzolans derived from industrial byproducts such as fly ash produced from the burning of pulverized coal, silica fume produced from electric arc furnaces, and ground blast furnace slag.
However, in developing countries, especially those with active or historic volcanism and/or large scale rice production, there are potential large supplies of suitable natural pozzolans. In addition, locally available (and thus cost effective) natural pozzolans may substantially reduce the overall use of Portland cement if simple and reliable field methods can be developed that would judge their suitability for use in concrete.
United Nations Millennium Development Goal Number 1 is to “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.” Since more than a billion people still live on less than US$1 a day, there is a need for low cost and a locally available substitutes for Portland cement. Natural pozzolans will most likely he free to local communities, like sand and gravel currently are. Therefore, if a community obtains materials locally, their labor can usually be considered as an in-kind cost to the project’s sponsors. Millennium Development Goal Number 7 is to “ensure environmental sustainability” with a target for year 2015 to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water. Water supply projects are one aspect of engineering infrastructure where natural pozzolans might be used.
Three natural pozzolans were evaluated in our Phase I study; volcanic ash, diatomaceous earth, and rice husk ash.
- A life cycle assessment (LCA) and economic input-output LCA were performed to further determine the environmental impact of manufacturing 1 ton of Portland cement.
- Laboratory tests were performed on different pozzolan-cement mixes to determine issues related to workability and strength.
- An economic and social analysis, focused on the Philippines, was performed to support Phase II plans to construct prototype water storage tanks that contain some percent of natural pozzolan substitution.
- The global economic savings and potential reduction in anthropogenic CO2 emissions were estimated, assuming, these natural pozzolans were used in water supply projects to serve the one billion people in the word that do not have access to safe drinking water.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
From 1880 to 1996, the world’s annual consumption of Portland cement rose from less then 2 million tons to 1.3 billion tons. Some associated environmental costs include: a) after vehicle and utility emissions, cement manufacturing is the largest industrial producer of CO2 and accounts for over 50% of all industrial CO2 emissions; b) for every ton of cement produced, 1 to 1.25 tons of CO2 are produced; and, c) approximately 3,200 lbs of raw materials is required to manufacture 2,000 lbs of cement.
Two life cycle assessments (LCA), using Simpro software and an economic input-output LCA, performed in this study confirmed the regional and global environmental impact of manufacturing Portland cement. In addition, the results of the LCA showed that the manufacturing life stage contributed the greatest amount of environmental stress (e.g., acid rain potential, ecotoxicity, land use, climate change, and human health respiratory impact) for every environmental impact category evaluated except for the impact on minerals from the life stage of premanufactunng.
The three natural pozzolans were found to have widespread availability on a global basis and furthermore, they may be available to communities at no cost, such as sand and aggregate (i.e., gravel) are currently available.
Extensive compressive strength tests and workability tests that followed established ASTM procedures suggested that two of these pozzolans, volcanic ash and rice husk ash, could be substituted for Portland cement at up to 25% in the manufacture of concrete with no loss in workability or strength. As an example of greater detail for the substitution of volcanic ash for Portland cement, the compressive strengths from the 25%-substitution of volcanic ash produced satisfactory results at both the 7-day and 28-day cylinder breaks, resulting in compressive strength values of over 3,000 psi at 28 days. These values meet standards for strength established by the U.S. construction industry. However, the 50% mix resulted in a compressive strength that was significantly below the controls. The test cylinders also showed an expected strength gain between the 7-day and 28-day breaks which amounted to approximately 1,000 psi. Tests results determined that the physical properties of volcanic ash, such as angularity, surface area, and porosity are similar to Portland cement, which would explain why a standard 0.5 water- to-cement (w/c) ratio could be used for mixing.
Social and economic studies that focused on the Philippines indicated that it is one of many developing countries in need of water, sanitation, and housing infrastructure investment. Since poor people largely depend on physical labor for income, health and education conditions play an important role in poverty and income distribution. Poor living conditions may also adversely affect the growth on human capital formation and therefore the potential for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). The incidences of health problems, lack of access to safe drinking water and sanitation, education impediments, crime, and instability due to these living conditions create very unattractive investment climates for FDI. Locally available pozzolans would decrease the price of construction materials and can be processed on-site with low-tech training.
Conclusions:
As an extension of the overall goals of the project, an investigation was performed to quantify the real-world contributions that the implications of the project could entail. Specifically, the potential economic savings (U.S. dollars) and reduction of CO2 emissions (tons) were estimated with the assumption that these natural pozzolans would be utilized on a global basis, to their fullest extent as determined in this study’s strength tests. It was also assumed that the pozzolans would be applied in the construction of either spring-boxes or gravity fed water systems within the developing world.
United Nations Millennium Development Goal Number 1 is to “eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.” Since more than a billion people still live on less than US$1 a day, there is a need for low cost and a locally available substitutes for Portland cement. Natural pozzolans will most likely be free to local communities, like sand and gravel currently are. A second Millennium Development Goal (No. 7) is to “ensure environmental sustainability” with a target for year 2015 to reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water.
The results (summarized in Table 1.5) suggest that if the natural pozzolans investigated in this study were used to construct spring boxes or gravity fed water systems for the 1 billion people worldwide that do not have access to safe drinking water, $141 to $451 million could be saved if volcanic ash or rice husk ash were substituted for Portland cement at a 25% level, and $37 to $102 million could be saved if diatomaceous earth was substituted for Portland cement at 6.25%.
It was estimated that if natural pozzolans were used to construct spring boxes or gravity fed water systems for the 1 billion people worldwide that do not have access to safe drinking water, the total anthropogenic CO2 emissions could decrease from 0.95 to 3.8 million tons if volcanic ash or rice husk ash were substituted for Portland cement at a 25% level, and from 240.000 to 874,000 tons if diatomaceous earth was substituted for Portland cement at 6.25%.
Proposed Phase II Objectives and Strategies:
The overall results from our Phase I study demonstrated the need for, and potential use of two natural pozzolans (i.e., volcanic ash and rice husk ash) in the developing world for construction materials. In Phase II of this project we propose to meet the following objectives.
- Conduct further laboratory strength tests on pozzolan-substituted concrete to determine if the systems can accept a percent substitution greater than 25%
- Conduct material characterization tests to understand more specific chemical and physical features of pozzolan-substituted concrete
- Construct several prototype full-size ferrocement tanks using our recommendations on pozzolan substitution and test them for workability and water holding capacity
- Perform societal and economic studies on the Philippines to: 1) map poverty, natural resources, and cement plants, 2) analyze the industrial organization of the Philippine cement industry, and 3) develop a detailed life cycle analysis for sustainable agriculture; and
- Develop, and disseminate via the web, a test method to identify appropriate pozzolans in the field that can be easily transferred and performed in the developing world.
During Phase II we plan to add an additional university that is located in a remote area of The Philippines. The university, Partido State University (PSU), is the perfect partner for this study. PSU is located in an area sandwiched between 3 volcanoes, Mt. Isarog, Mt. Asug, and Mt. Mayon, of which Mt. Mayon is still active. The distance is less than 1 hour to each of the 3 volcanoes and all three have different characteristics, which will be important in our technical evaluation of the field evaluation method proposed in Phase II. Also, in 2003, the Philippines ranked 8th in the world in terms of rice production (8.3 million tons) and 8th in terms of rice consumption (9.1 million tons). There is also an interest at Partido State in sustainable engineering projects and appropriate technology (e.g., such as use in construction of ferrocement tanks for storage of collected rainwater), and their access to natural pozollans places our team in an excellent position to begin piloting the materials in community-based construction. Finally, Michigan Tech also has a Master’s International graduate student (Mr. Dan Nover) based in Partido State University, in the Sanitary Engineering Department, as part of his service in the U.S. Peace Corps.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 1 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
RFA, Scientific Discipline, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, Air, Sustainable Industry/Business, POLLUTION PREVENTION, cleaner production/pollution prevention, Energy, climate change, Air Pollution Effects, Chemistry and Materials Science, Environmental Engineering, Atmosphere, environmentally preferable products, environmental monitoring, cleaner production, green design, sustainable development, natural pozzolans, clean technology, alternative materials, green home building, energy efficiency, pollution prevention design, construction material, product life cycle, hydraulic cement, clean manufacturing designs, environmentally conscious designThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.