Synthesis and Characterization of Sustainable Man-Made Low Cost Clay Bricks with Bamboo Leaf Ash

This studies investigated a few engineering properties of the effect of bamboo leaf ash blended with brick clay. The bamboo leaves used for this study have been gathered in the agricultural farm, Eastern University, Sri Lanka and the brick clay was acquired from Verpavettuvan, on the depth of 1 to 1.5 m beneath the earth surface. The leaves have been cleaned, sun-dried, burnt in an open environment and then bamboo leaf ash (BLA) has been obtained by heating in a muffle furnace at 600°C for 2 hours. Physical and chemical properties of BLA blended brick has been performed according to British and Indonesian Standard Specifications BS and SNI respectively. The chemical test showed that the total combination of Silica Oxide (SiO₂), Aluminum oxide (Al₂O₃) and Ferrous oxide (Fe ₂ O ₃ ) content in BLA became above 70% minimal fashionable requirement targeted with the aid of ASTM (ASTM C 618, 2008) for pozzolanic substances. Sex type of BLA blended clay bricks have been manufactured at 0%, 2%, 4%, 6%, 8% and 10%. A complete of 72 bricks comprising of 7 bricks for each percentage of the clay bricks of size 185 mm x 85 mm x 65 mm. Those bricks have been cast with the addition of water-clay ratio of 0.6 to 0.8 to structure a very good workability. Then the green bricks have been mould, dried for 2 days underneath sunlight, baked and physical properties analysed. The analyses of average density, average water absorption, average compressive strength and average flexural strength of the fired clay brick blended with 8 % bamboo leaf ash (BLA) are 1129 kg.m -3 , 21.5%, 70 kg.cm -2 and 0.56 kg.cm -2 respectively. These physical properties have been compared with the c control brick purely manufactured from clay. From the results, clay-BLA bricks are perceptibly better than the control brick; those are available in the Eastern region markets.