Sustainable Concrete Production by Integrating Wastes: A Comparative Study with and Without Bacillus Megaterium

Cement is generally one of the most important construction material but causes 5–7% of globally anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. Various studies have been done on the integration of waste materials to cement to reduce the amount of cement used for construction purposes. Agricultural and Industrial fields produce numerous types of Supplementary Cementitious Materials (SCM’s) as wastes which otherwise can be used as replacement in cement for concrete production. In the present study, Rice Straw and Electric Arc Furnace Dust which are two such agricultural and industrial wastes respectively, which cause numerous health and environmental problems, were used for concrete manufacturing. The objective of current study was to compare the properties of concrete manufactured by replacement of cement with the mixture of rice straw ash (5%) and electric arc furnace dust (5%) with and without the addition of Bacterium named Bacillus megaterium at a cell concentration of 10⁵ ml/water. A comparison of the performance of concrete was done based on water absorption capacity and compressive strength of specimens. It was observed that concrete manufactured with Bacillus megaterium shows 10% more compressive strength and 45% less water absorption capacity than concrete made without bacteria.