Literature Review

This literature review will be synthesizing particular articles that were presented
in my annotated bibliography. Not just any articles, but the main articles that are relevant
to my research gap. Of course, my research gap will be about the most talked about
subject throughout my whole annotated bibliography, which is the alternative materials
for strengthening cement. But the actual research gap is to find out what other materials
besides the ones previously mentioned in the articles can also strengthen cement. The
difference between my literature review and my annotated bibliography is that my
annotated bibliography main purpose was to separately summarize each of my research
articles. While my literature review will be, just like my professor said, recounting what
has already been said in the conversation as well as what has been left out of the
conversation. In other words, this literature review will be synthesizing each of the
sources that are relevant to my research gap and comparing their main points. But to
successfully accomplish this, I will be looking at three relevant articles and figuring out
what is already known and what has been left out of this particular conversation.
Before continuing onto the three articles, youre probably wondering why theres
a need to find alternative materials to help strengthen cement. The reason for that is
because one of the main problems that are usually experienced during the service life of
concrete paving blocks includes occasional failure due to excessive surface wear because
of cement. So its almost crucial to have alternative materials strengthen cement so this
problem becomes almost non-existent. So the three articles that I will be looking at
closely include alternative materials that will accomplish this problem. Between these

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three articles, the materials include marine algae, soil bacteria, and bamboo and rice husk
ash.
Starting off with marine algae, the statistics of strength increase when marine
algae is applied are as follows. When cement is 10% of marine algae, theres a 4%
increase in strength. But when its 20% marine algae, theres a 3.5% increase in strength.
So as you can see from the results, theres a downfall in percentage when more marine
algae is applied to the cement. So the best scenario would be to only apply 10% of marine
algae into the cement. The hypothesis behind this experiment is that if the biomimicry
and biotechnological investigation is being conducted to create concrete the way nature
does with microorganisms and other bio-products in the environment, then a bioconcrete
would be a suitable substitute for cement based concrete and can be easily produced.
Which made the authors behind the article to believe that the biologically inducing
precipitation of calcium carbonate from bacteria, algae and fungi can solve the purpose.
What I thought was missing from this piece is more test groups. By that I mean they
should have added 30% and 40% marine algae so they can have more test groups to back
up their results more by having more evidence. But by just have two test groups, it
doesnt really confidently claim the results to be valid. One thing I also found
controversial was how marine algae werent technically the only material added to
influence the strength in the cement. The authors wrote that vitamins and other vital
materials were applied but they dont say what kind of vitamins or what kind of vital
materials were actually added with the marine algae.
The other two articles talk about soil bacteria, bamboo and rice husk ash as the
main alternative materials that strengthen cement. According to the results for soil

bacteria, the 28th day compressive strength of the bacterial cement mortar is found to
increase up to 18% when cured with water containing urea and up to 12% when cure with
water. According to the results, it was observed that cement replacement up to 20% by
RHA with 3% is appropriate in strength. Which basically means that the best solution
when it comes to using bamboo and rice husk ash as partial replacements will be when
cement has 20% of rice husk ash and 3% by weight of bamboo. They found this out by
having test groups for bamboo and rice husk ash. The test groups were 0%,1%,2% and
3% bamboo by weight and 0%,10%,20%and 30% of rice husk ash. Personally I thought
nothing was missing or controversial in this experiment. I thought everything was spot on
especially when it comes to providing evidence such as having tables providing important
data.
From carefully looking at articles dealing with alternative materials that can be
used to strengthen cement, I went out and did my own research on the same subject for
my project proposal. My project proposal will be how I conduct an experiment on finding
alternative materials to strengthen cement if I was allowed to do so. But since Im not, I
will just be writing on how I would accomplish this if I were to do it. The reason its
crucial to find partial replacements for cement is because its production requires large
amount of energy, which contributes for pollution and global warming. That is because
the process of cement production starts from mining for raw materials, crushing, blending
and heating these materials at high temperature of 15000C and finally creating cement
from heated materials. So as the demand for more and more is increasing day by day, the
quantity of cement requirements is also increasing. Which means that, the control the
emissions of greenhouse gases cannot be reduced to prevent global warming. So as useful

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it is to use cement to produce concrete, it really isnt the best choice when it comes to
global warming. So after doing so intense research, I came across two alternative
materials that can be used to strengthen cement and can also act as a partial replacement
for cement as well. These two are Fly ash and Cenocell. While Fly ash is well known for
most people dealing with alternative materials for cement, Cenocell isnt as much. Fly
ash is composed of small particles that are removed from combustion gases. Though most
of it is disposed as a waste product, certain types of Fly ash can be used to replace a
portion of cement when in the process of making concrete. Now with Cenocell, its
really different when comparing it to concrete. That is because it doesnt require any
cement, not even sand or water which is the basics in cement when used in concrete.
Cenocell is produced by Fly ash or coal ash.
Now by having these two materials, I would then go on and test them to see if
they are reliable replacements or alternative materials to strengthen cement. By doing
this, I would make test groups with each test group containing a different amount of
either Fly ash or Cenocell. From then on I would go and to see if the test subjects are
reliable replacements or reliable alternative materials used when trying to strengthen
cement. Of course to accurately see the results, I would compare each test group to the
control group to see if theres any huge difference in strength. If theres barely any
change, then I would assume that test group as not reliable and that their results is just
coincidental. After having obtaining my results, I would then go on and publish it as a
research article so other people in the same field can be notified by these results.

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Citations

Niveditha C., Sarayu K., Ramachandra Murthy A., Ramesh Kumar V., Nagesh
R. Iyer, Marine Algae for Cement Mortar Strengthening, Journal of Civil
Engineering Research, Vol. 4 No. 2A, 2014, pp. 23-25. doi:
10.5923/c.jce.201401.05.

Omoniyi T. E, Akinyemi B. A, Akinosun T. A., Performance of Concrete Paving

Blocks Reinforced with Bamboo and Rice Husk Ash as Partial Replacement for
Cement, Journal of Civil Engineering Research, Vol. 3 No. 2, 2013, pp. 81-87.
doi: 10.5923/j.jce.20130302.03.

Sujatha S., Sarayu K., Annaselvi M., Ramachandra Murthy A., Ramesh Kumar
V., Nagesh R. Iyer, Soil Bacteria for the Strength Enhancement of Cement
Mortar, Journal of Civil Engineering Research, Vol. 4 No. 2A, 2014, pp. 51-54.
doi: 10.5923/c.jce.201401.10.

"CONCRETE WITHOUT CEMENT - A GREEN ALTERNATIVE." The Constructor.

N.p., 04 Feb. 2015. Web. 06 Apr. 2015.

"New Material Provides Strong and Lightweight Alternative to Concrete

without Cement." New Material Provides Strong and Lightweight Alternative to
Concrete without Cement. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Apr. 2015.