POTENTIALS OF WATER HYACINTH ASH IN PARTIAL REPLACEMENT OF CEMENT

Abstract

The need to achieve more housing for all requires the reduction in the persistent increase in the cost of building materials such as cement and also finding new materials. This research work is aimed at determining the possibility of using some percentage of water hyacinth with cement for concrete production. The water hyacinth was completely dried and ground to ash form. Using a mix ratio of 1:2:4, the compressive strength of cubes made from cement/water hyacinth of different percentage ratios of 100:00, 70:30, 60:40, 50:50 results were compared. The results showed that after 28 days of curing the compressive strength test of 100% cement concrete was quite higher than that of other ratios of cement/water hyacinth mixture. Even though the strength is not high enough for structures requiring high compressive strength, it could still be applicable to storage structures with low compressive strength. Its use in other areas such as in water treatment plants and the production of biogas is also recommended.