Oil Palm Shell: Lightweight Concrete & Structures

Due to a high demand in construction and furniture industries worldwide, natural resources such as stones and wood as non-renewable resources are being depleted. Thus, researchers are focusing on renewable resources as alternative materials. As such, the utilisation of abundant solid wastes and byproducts, which are discharged from agriculture, industry and municipalities present an alternative to the conventional materials for the construction and furniture industries. These solid wastes and byproducts, when properly processed have shown to be effective and can readily meet design specifications. Agricultural solid wastes from oil palm distributors such as Oil Palm Shell (OPS) and Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB), which are abundant in agro-based countries, present an interesting alternative to the conventional aggregate in lightweight concrete and artificial plank production, respectively. At present, palm oil producing countries are Barkina Faso, Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Colombia, Costa Rica, Côte dIvoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Liberia, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Republic of Congo, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Uganda, Venezuela and others. In Malaysia, oil palm plantations cover over 5 million hectares, and annual production of OPS as solid waste from 450 oil palm mills is more than 6 million tons. This large amount of OPS as a renewable green aggregate can contribute to overcoming the over dependence on depletable resources for concrete production. The civil engineering projects are of a larger scale; they need sustainable materials in order to gain a greater momentum of growth. The major technical characteristics of OPS solid waste must be primarily understood before each particular use. Therefore, there is a need to highlight the importance of OPS to be used in the construction industry.