A STUDY ON THE PRODUCTION OF A NEW MATERIAL FROM FLY-ASH AND POLYETHYLENE

Coal combustion fly ash is produced as a byproduct in huge amounts fro m pulverized coal-fired power plants. Waste plastics from packaging ma terials and other uses are recovered in large quantities. An investiga tion has been conducted to produce a new building material from fly as h and polyethylene. The work was carried out with two typical coal fly ashes and polyethylene bags. The tensile strengths and the chemical r esistance of the materials, in addition to the effect of temperature w ere examined. Characterization of these materials was also studied by means of XRD, IR and SEM techniques. The tensile strengths of the mate rials range from 0.92 to 2.62 kp/mm(2). When the ratio of fly ash is l ow, better results were obtained. There was no significant loss in wei ght in solutions of NaOH (5%), CH3COOH (5%), C2H5OH (95%), H2SO4 (5%) and H2O.