Rice husk (RH) as additive in fly ash based geopolymer mortar

In recent year, the Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) concrete is vastly used as main binder in construction industry which lead to depletion of natural resources in order to manufacture large amount of OPC. Nevertheless, with the introduction of geopolymer as an alternative binder which is more environmental friendly due to less emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) and utilized waste materials can overcome the problems. Rice husk (RH) is an agricultural residue which can be found easily in large quantity due to production of paddy in Malaysia and it’s usually disposed in landfill. This paper investigated the effect of rice husk (RH) content on the strength development of fly ash based geopolymer mortar. The fly ash is replaced with RH by 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% where the sodium silicate and sodium hydroxide was used as alkaline activator. A total of 45 cubes were casted and their compressive strength, density and water absorption were evaluated at 1, 3, and 7 days. The result showed compressive strength decreased when the percentage of RH increased. At 5% replacement of RH, the maximum strength of 17.1MPa was recorded at day 7. The geopolymer has lowest rate of water absorption (1.69%) at 20% replacement of RH. The density of the sample can be classified as lightweight geopolymer concrete.