A review on sustainable use of agricultural straw and husk biomass ashes: Transitioning towards low carbon economy

In order to mitigate the problems associated with the deposition of biomass ashes, it becomes essential to use these materials efficiently. One solution to the problem is utilization of these wastes in the concrete industry. Due to the massive development of infrastructure, the demand for cement is tremendously rising which results in the surge of cement concrete by 30 billion tonnes every year. Plant-based straw and husk ashes are residual waste containing high amounts of silica, which can also be accommodated as a pozzolanic material in concrete. This study presents a complete review of various husk and straw ashes and their impacts on the fresh and hardened properties of concrete including its preparation, microstructure, workability, compressive strength, splitting tensile strength and flexural strength. Special emphasis has been given to the durability characteristics of concrete focussing on porosity, water penetration, carbonation, acid resistance, sulphate, and chloride attack. The data gathered shows that fineness of ashes provides filler and pore refinement effect and gains additional hydration products, resulting in an improvement of the mechanical and durability properties of concrete. The addition of ashes as supplementary cementitious materials in concrete enhances the mechanical performance up to a certain replacement. The optimum level of replacement for rice husk ash, wheat straw ash, and sugarcane straw ash was observed at 10-20%. While wheat husk ash, groundnut husk ash, rice straw ash, and millet husk ash provide optimum strength gains at 10% replacement of OPC. An increase in the replacement content of mostly ashes has a positive effect on water absorption and resistance to acid, sulphate, and chloride attacks.