A novel use of undesirable wild giant reed biomass to replace aggregate in concrete

Giant reed is an aggressive agricultural species with remarkable reproductive abilities allow it to out compete native species of plants for land and food resources. This paper reports a novel application of giant reed ash (GRA) and air-dried giant reed fibers (GRF) to partially replace sand in concrete mixes by 2.5%, 5.0%, 7.5%, 10.0%, and 12.5%. Ten concrete mixes were prepared with giant reed, 5 mixes prepared with GRA and 5 with GRF. Concrete mixes were evaluated for workability, density, compressive strength, and flexural strength. Curing ages of 7, 14, and 28 days were applied in this study. Results revealed that at 28 days curing, the compressive strength increased up to 7.96% and 2.47% using GRA and GRF, respectively to replace sand by 7.5% by weight. The results confirm that using giant reed offers a sustainable approach to solve the pollution problems that arise from an accumulation of this excessive aggressive species in the production sites; in the meantime modified properties are added to the concrete. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.