Incorporation of agricultural residues as partial substitution for cement in concrete and mortar – A review

Abstract Affordable housing had become elusive to the teaming population of the world due to ever increasing cost of construction materials. Concrete, being the most commonly used building material has been seriously affected by high cost of ingredient materials. The search for alternative materials for concrete led to the investigation of agricultural residues as supplementary materials in mortar and concrete. Effective use of these materials in concrete will result to the green method of disposal of large quantity of waste, which would have caused environmental nuisance. Research has been given attention on the incorporation of agricultural residues in concrete and mortar with findings showing their great potentials. An overview of studies carried out on selected agricultural residues is presented in this paper. The review considered the utilization of the residues as partial substitution for cement in mortar and concrete. The residues were characterized by evaluating their chemical, physical and mineralogical properties. Also, their influence on the characteristics of concrete and mortar such as workability, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, flexural strength water absorption and acid attack were discussed in detail. It was concluded based on the various studies in this article that appropriate treatment methods and careful selection of materials will aid the improvement of concrete and mortar properties made with agricultural residues.