Effect of olive waste (Husk) on behavior of cement paste

Jordan is a famous country in terms of olive trees agriculture that resulted in a mass production of olive oil products. The huge amounts of olive waste (husk) that resulted from olives processing to produce olive oil represent an environmental challenge in the country. The idea in this paper comes to use olive waste as a partial replacement for Portland cement in cement paste to conserve the environment, reduce cement consumption and increase cost efficiency. The wastes were burned properly in an oven and maintained for 6 h until it was fully transformed into ashes. Then, the oven was turned off and ashes were allowed to cool. After cooling, the material passed sieve #200 were used. The sieved ashes were used in the cement mix as a partial cement replacement for making the mortar and cement paste. Normal consistency and setting time were determined as well as soundness, compressive strength. Results indicated that normal consistency of the cement pastes containing different percentage of olive waste is somehow lower than that of the ordinary cement paste and slightly decreases with increasing the percentage. The results also indicated that the compressive strength of hardened blended cement paste containing different percentages of olive waste slightly decrease with olive waste content at 3, 7, and 28 days.