Engineered cementitious composites using powder regenerated from municipal solid waste incineration bottom ash as supplementary cementitious material

Ecotype Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECC) can not only consume a huge amount of solid waste, reduce environmental pollution and human damage, but also reduce the high production cost of such materials. In this research, municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) bottom ash was used to develop economical and applicable ecotype ECC. Firstly, the physical and chemical properties of MSWI bottom ash with different particle sizes were analyzed, and the bottom ash particles with high reactivity were screened out and ground into powder. Then the uniaxial tensile and four-point bending tests were used to study the mechanical strength and strain-hardening properties of ECC containing bottom ash powder. The results present that the powder milled by bottom ash particles with the size of 2.36-9.5 mm has finer particles and higher reactivity. The optimal ratio of bottom ash powder to cement for ECC can be determined as 2.2:1. Here ECC not only has high mechanical strength but also exhibits wonderful strain-hardening properties and multiple micro-cracking capacities. The increase in fiber content and water-binder ratio is beneficial to the development of excellent ductility. This study provides a strategy to produce low-cost ecotype ECC by using MSWI bottom ash powder as supplementary cementitious materials.