Anyone Make Coal Ash Bricks or Other Recycled Ash Products?
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Just was reading about the "self-cementing" properties of coal ash when introduced to moisture...and on a side note also noticed the ash bucket I put outside to cool got some snow moisture in it and it is now hard as a rock. Anyone make bricks or anything like that out of their coal ash? I know it goes into all sorts of industrial cements, sealants, wallboard, etc... But just curious if anyone is doing it themselves just for the heck of it - making something useful out of waste
- SMITTY
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I see that your in AK, so your coal up there may have ash similar to what power plants produce. I couldn't tell you for sure, as I've only burned a small amount of bit before ... and this stuff is completely different than what's mined out your way .... and I've never run a powerplant .... so just my best guess.
I use my ash all over the place for filling holes. Works well, but in weather like we've had here lately -- 60° followed by 6° the next night -- it still turns to soup. Once the moisture leaves, it hardens up pretty good. I'd have no problem tossing a couple handfuls of the ash into a batch of concrete. Just don't know for sure how the acids would react with the cement -- could possibly ruin it ... not sure.
Industrial fly ash is tossed in commercial batches all the time. Maybe there's less crap in the ash due to pollution control equipment? I couldn't tell ya ...
I use my ash all over the place for filling holes. Works well, but in weather like we've had here lately -- 60° followed by 6° the next night -- it still turns to soup. Once the moisture leaves, it hardens up pretty good. I'd have no problem tossing a couple handfuls of the ash into a batch of concrete. Just don't know for sure how the acids would react with the cement -- could possibly ruin it ... not sure.
Industrial fly ash is tossed in commercial batches all the time. Maybe there's less crap in the ash due to pollution control equipment? I couldn't tell ya ...
- Short Bus
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I've put piles of ash from Healy Alaska coal, burned in a hand fired stove, out in the rain and it just turned to grease.
I now run a underfeed stoker and plan to spread the clinkers on my driveway in the spring, don't want to spread them now as the snow plow would not like it.
I now run a underfeed stoker and plan to spread the clinkers on my driveway in the spring, don't want to spread them now as the snow plow would not like it.
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my shop was built in the early 60's out of cement block.........well theres coal in the block......quite a bit of it....shiny too
- freetown fred
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My gravel driveway got treated last season w/ all my ash from last season. It did get slurppy when it would rain so I kept on it with my field roller--she's in pretty good shape now. This yr. I've been dumping around the stone foundation of the house & come spring will trowel it up on the stone to fill whatever it will fill--we'll see how that works--I took a bunch of ash from last yr & dosed the walls of my ever leaking pond in the lower pasture--she seem'd to be holding water better twds the end of last summer--I guess gravity just sucks the ash where it needs to be. I'm not a scientist,so all I can tell you is it seems to help.
- Yanche
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Many power plants have fluid bed boilers, in effect molten grates; coal, other minerals and combustion are are blown in. The resultant high temperatures are close to those in a portland cement kiln. This results in fly ash that has properties similar to cement. Depending the the coal other minerals are added to control output air quality.AKShadow wrote:maybe a stupid question, but whats the difference besides volume and higher temperatures?