Investigation into the use of cow dung as a partial replacement of cement in mortar.

Abstract

Sustainability is important to the well-being of our planet, continued growth of a society, and human development. However, the steadily increasing cost of cement has made concrete, mortar and other cement products, very expensive particularly in developing countries, this has necessitated the need to intensify the search for supplementary cementitious materials for utilization as partial substitute for cement. This research project presents the results on the study of the pozzolanic potentials of cow dung. Cow dung was sun-dried, ground using a rubber pester then sieved through 600µm sieve. The sample was tested for physical and chemical properties such as loss of ignition and sieve test. The test results revealed that cow dung contained 76.65% as silica content, 2.13% as Alumina content. Cement paste and mortar were produced using Cow dung as cement replacement at 0, 5%,15% and 20%. Standard consistency, soundness and workability tests were conducted on the blended cement paste. Test results reveled that adding cow dung to cement, requires more water content by increasing the dung content. The result also reveals that incorporation of cow dung decreased the expansion from 2.2mm (for control sample) to 0.65mm (for 15% cow dung). For workability, the results show that the slump decreases with increase in the amount of Cow dung which indicates that more water is required to maintain the same consistency as the Cow dung content increases while compressive strength test was conducted on the hardened mortar cubes after curing for 7,14, and 28 days. Addition of cow dung to cement paste increased standard consistency, while the compressive strength decreases with increase in cow dung and increase with curing age.