Coalash as Sustainable Material for Low Energy Building

*Avijit Ghosh*

## **Abstract**

Sand, which is a naturally occurring soft mineral ranks second after water, as far as consumption is concerned globally. Due to rapid infrastructural development worldwide, particularly in Asian region, the rate of natural formation of sand has been found to be outpaced by rate of consumption, causing greater ecological imbalances. Coalash, an industrial waste from thermal power plants are polluting in nature, and legacy ash in huge proportion without proper utilization is posing a serious threat to the environment. It was ideated to replace sand by coalash in concrete and mortar mix, and to evaluate the physical and thermal properties for its suitability in low energy building construction. Without compromising strength criteria, thermal transmittance value is found to be reduced up to considerable extent, which resulted lesser cooling requirement with added economic benefit. This medium technology application could be one of the economic pathway towards Near Zero Building Construction.

**Keywords:** sand, coal ash, energy, envelop, building
