A study of some relevant properties of concrete incorporating waste ceramic powder as a cement replacement agent

Cement, the key ingredient in concrete, is responsible for 8% of the world's CO2 emissions. Thus, reducing the amount of cement used in concrete is highly desirable to lower the total embodied carbon in concrete manufacturing. Furthermore, an increasing amount of ceramic waste powder (CWP) is generated during the ceramics manufacturing process, which can result in severe environmental problems such as soil, air, and groundwater pollution. This paper reports the use of CWP as a cement replacement agent in concrete to reduce environmental pollution in both concrete production and CWP waste management fields. For this purpose, comprehensive laboratory work was carried out to replace different levels of cement with CWP. It was found that changes in compressive strength and water absorption value are within the acceptable tolerance when 20% CWP replaces cement. In addition, there was an improvement in thermal conductivity, and no significant damage to the mechanical properties of concrete after 30 min of fire exposure when CWP replaced 20% of cement was observed. Therefore, using up to 20% of CWP to replace cement in concrete manufacturing is feasible without compromising the essential properties of the finished products. The microstructural studies of the test specimens further proved that the added CWP was evenly scattered in the concrete matrix.