The Use of Crushed Chicken Egg Shells as a Potential Additive for Concrete

Authors

  • Jhunvil Mae P. Cacho
  • Mykaella Jordanne D. Sampiano

Keywords:

chicken egg shells, compressive strength, curing, concrete

Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Due to increasing number of generated wastes, improper disposal and landfill management lead to more pollution issues posing a huge threat to public health. As one of many proposed solutions, construction industries seek for potential alternative raw materials and low-cost additives to be reused without compromising the quality of concrete. With the right treatments, various types of industrial and non-biodegradable waste can be used as fillers in making concrete (Marinamarican, 2015). This research study aims to use waste chicken egg shells as potential additive in concrete, alongwith the standard materials such as cement, sand, and gravel.

METHOD

Chicken egg shells were gathered withinTanza, Cavite. The egg shells were crushed and added in the mixture design based on the American Concrete Mix Design. Two formulations with 6 replicates each were made: treatment 1 for the standard concrete and treatment 2 for the concrete with crushed egg shells. The concrete mixtures were placed in a 4'' by 8" cylindrical molders and were detached after drying. The concretes were cured for 7, 14, and 28 days, respectively. After the curing process, each treatment has undergone the compressive strength test in accordance to their labels.

RESULTS

The conducted compressive strength test showed that the replicates of both treatments have obtained similar trends among the results, wherein TM2 has achieved greater average compressive strength compared to TM1 after the 7, 14, and 28 days of curing. With the presence of egg shells acting as potential fillers, air void formations were lessened, resulting to stronger and more durable cylindrical concretes. The obtained averages of the formulations with and without egg shells significantly increased as the concrete ages and its duration extends, obtaining a higher average compressive strength after every curing period. The 28day old provided the greatest compressive strength among the mixtures, whereas the amount of materials was kept constant in all concrete samples.

DISCUSSIONS

The results may be attributed to the proper tampering of concretes while being poured in its cylindrical molders. Using one-way ANOVA, the findings showed that there was a significant difference between the mean compressive strength of TM1 and TM2. Both the null hypotheses were therefore rejected. The gathered outcome showed that egg shells can be used as a partial additive in concrete as it increases the compressive strength of a standard cylindrical concrete.

Published

2019-01-18