Foam fly ash geopolymer with recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastics

• Main Author: Atienza, Emmanuel Marquez
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2023
• Subjects: Inorganic polymers; Waste products as building materials; Civil Engineering
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdm_civ/25
• Institution: De La Salle University

Sustainable construction involves responsible consumption of natural resources and reducing carbon emissions by recycling industrial wastes to produce new alternative and energy-saving materials. Adapting these practices to the building and construction sector could be a unified action to address the intensifying effects of global warming and the increasing rate of waste pollution worldwide. Aiming to lessen the emission from the construction and waste sector, and eliminate plastics in the open environment, a foam fly ash geopolymer with recycled High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) plastics was developed in this study. The effects of the increasing percentages of HDPE at 0.00%, 0.25%, and 0.50% on the thermo-physicomechanical properties of foam geopolymer were investigated, and environmental and economic analyses were carried out. The samples' measured density, compressive strength, and thermal conductivity at 0.25% and 0.50% HDPE content was 1,593.96 kg/m³ and 1,479.06 kg/m³, 12.67 MPa and 7.89 MPa, and 0.352 W/mK and 0.373 W/mK, respectively. Obtained results are comparable to structural and insulating lightweight concretes with a density of less than 1600 kg/m³, compressive strength of greater than 3.5 MPa, and thermal conductivity of less than 0.75 W/mK. Moreover, Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) results indicate that the foam fly ash geopolymer with recycled HDPE plastics emits 4% and 9% lower embodied carbon and is almost two times and five times more expensive than foam concrete and CHB wall, respectively. With the results obtained from the laboratory tests and analyses, this research concluded that the developed foam geopolymers with recycled HDPE plastics could be an alternative lightweight structural and insulating building material. In addition, the LCA and LCCA findings could be a reference for future studies, developments, and optimization of geopolymer products in the building and construction industry.