SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

FCE 590 FINAL YEAR CIVIL ENGINEERING PROJECT

PROJECT TITLE: RESEARCH ON COFFEE HUSKS ASH AS A POZZOLAN

BY
JOAN MAJALIA
EG204/0001/14,
MAINA ERICK
EG204/0008/14,
KARL NYAATA
EG204/0017/14
SUPERVISOR:
MR.KIGIRA
PROJECT SUBMITTED AS PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE
AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF BARCHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY IN CIVIL
ENGINEERING

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 ABSTRACT
Building materials have become increasingly expensive and beyond reach for many

grassroots household. Even with the government subsidies on building materials, their cost is

still far beyond reach of many local people. This militates against local people looking for

decent housing. With cement being one of the most expensive components of construction, it

has necessitated research into alternative materials for construction. Such research should deal

with reduction in construction materials’ cost while still maintaining or even improving the

current characteristic strengths of elements and structures erected from these materials. For

this objective, the use of agricultural byproducts in production of cement is very constructive.

With Kenya being a major player in production of agricultural products, the use of agricultural

byproducts in cement production can be a major breakthrough in cement production and as a

result in construction industry. These agricultural byproducts for example are rice husks,

sugarcane molasses and coffee husks. (Surajit, Gopinandan, Prassad, 2013) He showed that

they contain pozzolanic properties, which can be used as a partial replacement in cement, to

produce a Pozzolanic Portland cement.

Research studies show that Ordinary Portland cement can be mixed with some

agricultural by products for example Rice straw ash (Surajit, Gopinandan, Prassad, 2013) to

produce pozzolanic cement with qualities same as those of Ordinary Portland Cement(OPC)

only a few variations. With these agricultural products being readily and locally available, the

cost of cement is significantly reduced. According to Gharpedia.com, Pozzolanic Portland

Cement has the following attributes:

High durability which means the structure will last longer.

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 It can be used at any place.

It is resistant to various chemical attacks.

It is a green material hence ecofriendly.

It produces more cohesive concrete which can be easily pumped.

It has an additional compressive strength as compared to OPC.

In our study, we are going to research on coffee husks as a pozzolan. Coffee is a major

cash crop in Kenya and that it is ubiquitously grown all over the country. One kilogram of coffee

beans can produce a kilogram of coffee husks. There is great potential in coffee husks acting as

either a mixing or fixing or an additive to OPC to make Pozzolanic cement. If so, this will be of

great importance to both the construction industry and the agricultural industry where there is

no available way to dispose the coffee husks.

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CHAPTER ONE
1.0 Introduction

1.1 Background

Cement is one of the major components used in building. As the population increases so does

the need for affordable housing. The demand of Portland cement has also rose, being the only

cementitious/ binding product used for construction in most developing countries, Kenya

included.

Portland cement is the most common type of cement used in construction. It is an expensive

binder due to the high cost of production associated with the high energy requirements of its

manufacturing process (Neville, 1995). The high cost is attributed to the fact that during Portland

cement production calcareous and argillaceous materials are calcined in a rotary furnace at a

temperature in excess of 1300 degrees Celsius (Taylor 1997). This makes cement unaffordable

product in most developing countries. This has necessitated research to alternatives to Portland

cement. Many cement industries have made attempts to reduce such costs. One of the ways

discovered included use of natural pozzolans which mainly requires grinding and thus less costly

in terms of preparation to make pozzolanic cements (Blanks and Kennedy 1995).

The Pozzolanic Portland Cement is a kind of blended cement which is produced by either

intergrinding of OPC (Ordinary Portland Cement) clinker along with gypsum and pozzolanic

materials in certain proportions. In this type of cement, pozzolanic materials is one of the main

ingredient. The percentage of the pozzolanic material used in the preparation should be between

10 to 30. If the percentage is exceeded, the strength of cement is reduced.

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A pozzolan is therefore a natural/artificial material containing silica in a reactive form. It may be

further discussed as siliceous or amorphous siliceous and aluminous material in which in itself it

possesses little/no cementitious properties, but will in finely divided form in the presence of

moisture, will chemically react with calcium hydroxide at ordinary temperatures to form

compounds possessing cementitious properties.

In many ancient civilizations, pozzolans were used to enhance the properties of lime, and many

structures are still extent as a testament to the durability of lime pozzolan mortars and concrete.

Evidence of the use of pozzolans has been found in the Neolithic period(7000 BC) in galilee

referring to Malionowski et al),R.Walker Department of Civil Engineering, Trinity College,

Dublin 2, Ireland email: pavias@tcd.ie

The Romans used both natural and artificial pozzolans such as brick and tile dust. Natural

pozzolan are classified in two main groups as:

(1) Those derived from volcanic rocks in which the amorphous constituent is glass produced by

fusion, these include volcanic ashes and tuffs, pumice, scoria and obsidian.

(2) Those derived from rocks or earth for which the silica constituents contain opal, either from

precipitation of silica from solution or from the remains of organisms. Example cherts, opaline

silica, lava

Artificial pozzolans are often industrial or agricultural by products. They may be divided into

two groups

(1) Those of inorganic origin, those most important are obtained from calcined clays and

shale, calcined bauxite, calcined bauxite-waste, calcined spent oil, brick powder and fly

ash.

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Those of organic origin are ashes of coffee hulls, rise husks, coconut shells, sugar cane bagasse

and palm-nut shells and fibers.

Pozzolans continue to be used today as attested to by various researches done by different

scholars example is

The benefits of pozzolan use in cement are a number. First is the economic gain obtained by

replacing a substantial part of the Portland cement by cheaper natural pozzolans, industrial or

agricultural byproducts. Second is the lowering of the blended cement environmental cost

associated with the greenhouse gases emitted during Portland cement production. Moreover,

there is increased durability of the end product. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pozzolan

This, therefore makes us want to conduct a research study on coffee husks to attest its

potentiality to being a pozzolan. Coffee husk contain some amount of caffeine and tannins,

which can make it toxic and slow degradation in nature, resulting to disposal problem (Pandey,

A; Socol et al 2000 ).Coffee husks in most studies has been used to produce biomass fuels while

in others it has been used in the manufacture of organic fertilizers. There is very few literatures

on coffee husks being used as a pozzolan. Coffee is one of the main agricultural produce in

Kenya. The major coffee growing regions in Kenya are the high plateaus around Mt.Kenya, The

Aberdare ranges, Kisii, Nyanza, Bungoma, Nakuru,Kericho and Ruwenzori Mountains. It is

estimated that coffee processing in Kenya is generating about 9 million m3 of waste water, and

50000 tons of husks annually( George Tchobanoglous,et al) .This is a good amount of waste

which can be put to use in production of pozzolana cement. With this idea, local people even

those with little means will be in a better position to afford to build their own houses. This in

return will result to a better and safer society.

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1.2 Problem Statement

Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and Portland Pozzolanic cement (PPC) sold in Kenya is

relatively expensive due to its constituent elements which are used for its manufacture and also

the ratios used for its manufacture. This makes its relatively expensive for ordinary persons to

build permanent structures since Kenya is a developing country which makes its residents to

struggle to be able to purchase OPC to construct their structures. Due to this setback in our

Kenyan economy we decided to perform a study on how to create a cheaper cement by using

coffee husks ash as a pozzolan since some studies show that it has rich silica content which

happens to be the most ideal pozzolanic material. Using the coffee husks ash (CHA) which is a

waste from coffee processing factories thus making it a cheap raw material which will

considerably reduce the cost of production in turn making the cement being produced cheap and

easily accessible to common people. This will make a lot of people to be able to afford to

construct permanent structures which at the moment is a liability for them. The coffee husk ash

would also be tested to see its pozzolanicity, strength and durability. This study is engineered to

establish Portland Pozzolanic cement using the CHA as a pozzolan and it’s expected to bring out

a suitable PPC cement type.

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1.3 Main Objective

This research is aimed at determining the suitability of coffee husk ash as a pozzolan in the

production of Portland Pozzolanic cement. A pozzolans activity refers to both its capacity of

binding lime and the rate at which the binding reaction takes place thus it covers all the reactions

taking place between the active components of the pozzolan, lime and water. The reactivity of a

pozzolan depends on its chemical and mineralogical composition, the type and proportion of its

active phases, the particles specific surface area, the ratio of lime to pozzolan, water content,

curing time and also the temperature.

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1.4 Specific Objectives

i. To find the chemical composition of coffee husk ash under study.

ii. To determine the compressive strength of the PPC made.

iii. To check the modulus of elasticity of the coffee husk ash when used as a pozzolan.

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2.0 Literature review

Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) is made by the process of clinkerisation of calcareous and
argillaceous material at very high temperatures of around 1300℃ (Taylor, 1997). Limestone and
cement rock are quarried and taken to the processing factory. In there, they are blended together
at specific ratios to create a perfect mix. These rocks contain lime (CaCO3), silica (SiO2),
alumina (AL2O3), and a ferrous oxide (Fe2O3) which are the core raw materials for the
manufacturing of cement. These raw materials are mixed in their required proportions and
ground through either two processes which are ‘wet process or dry processes’.

Portland pozzolana cement (PPC), is a blended cement. It is produced by grinding both clinker
along with gypsum and pozzolanic materials in specified proportions. Alternatively, it can also
be produced by grinding clinker, gypsum and pozzolana separately then blending them together
afterwards (Muller, 2005). The percentage of pozzolanic materials to be used should range
between 10 and 30. It should be noted that amounts higher than that will make the cement to lose
its strength.

Coffee husks use as a pozzolan is scarce in the production of cement. Mostly, researches done
are based on it being used as a compost or as a fuel. This fact prompted us to try and check a
better way of using the coffee husks for the production of cement. This arose since a -study done
by Lee-Kuon Lin and Yi-Shu-Hsu, 2013, came up with coffee husk ash (CHA) which was
produced by burning coffee between 600℃ and 700℃ for 2 hours producing 90-95% silica, 1-
3% potassium oxide and <5% unburnt carbon under controlled burning condition in industrial
furnace.

Rice straw ash is the most widely used pozzolan in the manufacture of Portland pozzolana
cement. It has successfully been used in India since their main staple food is rice and also rice
straw and rice bran are used as feed for cattle, poultry, fish etc. thus making it useful for them to
use the waste to create a type of cement. The study was done by (Surajit et al, 2013) about rice
straw ash (RSA) and their study found out that;

 The RSA increased the compressive strength up to 12.5%, with 10% cement replacement

in mortar that had RSA.

 Initial setting time and final setting time increased with increased percentage of RSA

used.

 Since the RSA was an agricultural residue and naturally available it can considerably

lower the construction cost.

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As shown above we thought we could come up with another type of PPC by using coffee husks
which are a waste material from coffee factories. Mostly they are thrown and also given back to
farmers to be used as manures. This shows us that it is a readily available material in our Kenyan
market and mostly taken as a cheap component making it an ideal raw material that is easily
available and cheap. In addition to that it has the chemical properties that can be used as a
pozzolan thus making it the most suitable for the creation of a pozzolan.

In Kenya studies done are mostly based on the natural pozzolans unlike the artificial pozzolans.
One of the study was done by (Ephantus, Feb 1990) which was based mostly on the natural
pozzolans which have not been tapped such as yellow tuff, Athi tuff, pumice, phonolite and
diatomite. According to his thesis he found that the materials could be used to replace cement but
they were not being utilized. Unlike his research we would want to base our study on the
artificial pozzolans which happen to be sustainable and in line with the millennium development
goals. This is because with time the natural pozzolans would depreciate but the artificial
pozzolans would continue being produced since they are planted season after season in the
Kenyan highlands.

What prompted us to perform this study is the waste from coffee factories pollute the
environment when it rains thereby making it unpleasant for the nearby residents to suffer from
the odor emanating. Also the residues after coffee production were not fully used making it a
reliable waste material which in our study happens to be the key raw material. Also the previous
studies showed it to be a worthy pozzolan and also the RSA had performed impressively in the
cement production. Through this study we want to check if cement made by CHA pozzolan is
suitable and can be able to meet the required tests of a PPC. If it is successful it will make
construction work be relatively cheaper than it currently is and lessen the burden on the Kenyan
economy which also happens to be a developing economy.

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3.0 Methodology

This is a brief methodology of how the study is to be conducted;

(1) A field visit around Meru town to identify a coffee processing factory. This will in turn

result to booking an appointment so that a reconnaissance visit can be made to familiarize

with the area.

(2) Collecting the research materials for this intended study;

(a) Cement

The cement to be used is Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC)

(b) Fine aggregates

One type of fine aggregates is to be used throughout the experiment work so as to

keep the fine aggregate variable constant. The sand is to be collected from a small

local stream around the areas of Kunene in Nchiiru area, Meru County. Some locals

use it for constructions around the area.

(c) Coffee husks ash (CHA)

Coffee husks are wastes found in coffee processing factories. The husks are burnt in

an oven until it fully transforms to ashes. The ashes are then to be sieved by a sieve in

relation to the BS standard. This will help us identify the grain size analysis. Then the

ash retained is to be tested for pozzolanic properties.

(d) Water

Locally available purified water is to be used in the present work.

(3) Sample preparation

The coffee husks ash are to be made in a number of moulds to make a mortar so as to be able

to conduct a number of tests.

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The coffee husks ash is first to be dry mixed in a pan with the OPC cement, so that a uniform

mix of the two is obtained. Fine aggregates are then to be added, then the water is added. All

the materials to be mixed up in volumetric ratio. The mortar was to be kept in the moulds.

The moulds are to be 240mm by 115mm by 73mm (length, width and height). At least four

samples to be made, two having coffee husk ash mixed with OPC and the rest having the

OPC alone.

After 24 hours the specimens are to be demoulded and immersed in water. They are then to

undergo curing for 7, 14, 28 and 21 days. Then tests on the specimens are to be done in

regard to the curing days.

(4) Experimental methods

(a) Grain size analysis

This is to be done after the coffee husks ash are sieved and the results written down.

(b) Initial and final setting time

Setting time is the period taken for cement to harden. This will be conducted on the

Vicat apparatus.

(c)Compressive strength

This is the capacity of a material or structure to withstand axially directed pushing

forces. When the limit of compressive strength is reached brittle materials are

crushed. This test is to be done on the specimens by a digital compression testing

machine. The results are to be recorded after 7days, 14 days, 21 days and 28 days

from the specimens that are undergoing curing.

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4.0 WorkPlan

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5.0 Budget

Item Quantity Cost

Coffee Husk 50kg 1000
Clinker 50kg
Blue Triangle Cement 100kg
PPC 100kg
Lab Test 10 tests
Gypsum 20kg
water 200 litres
Transport
Total

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6.0 References

Pozzolanicity, Chloride Ingress and Compressive Strength of Laboratory made Kenya Portland Cement
Blends by Marangu Joseph Mwiti ( Bachelor of Science Chemistry), August 2013

Materials Sciences and Applications, 2011, Pages2,53-88, published online January 2011
(http;//www.SciRP.org/journal/msa)

Annon,’Pozzolana’, 2010

G.C,B “Portland Cement Composition,Production and Properties”, A.Wheaton and Co. Ltd, Exeter 1983

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