Anyone make coal ash bricks or other recycled ash products?

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

Residential coal ash has little if any of those properties. Power plant ash does but that's not what you have.

maybe a stupid question, but whats the difference besides volume and higher temperatures?

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 ...

yeah the coal here is sub-bit, its pretty low sulfur though for whatever thats worth, it sure turned hard when I left it out overnight

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, dont want to spread them now as the snow plow would not like it.

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

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.

AKShadow wrote:maybe a stupid question, but whats the difference besides volume and higher temperatures?

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.