Fly ash brick are being used all over the world, and have been for centuries I believe? Fly ash makes great, light and easy to cut fireproof bricks.
The materials engineers need to find an economic use for the coal firebox ash. It can be done; no doubt in my mind. The travesty is hauling it off to a dump somewhere and having heavy metals leached out of the dump site by rain and polluting ground water. Where there is a will there is a way, and the industry has to find a means to make this a marketable product.
I agree. They used our bottom ash for mixing asphalt at a plant I work in in the Midwest. There’s a way to use the ash. Just need to be worth the money to use it.
We (they) have. We use the different sizes on our private roads in the country. Cost is half of gravel and it does not get sticky when wet. It is dusty when it gets dry though
I agree. My son wrote a paper on this for a college application. (He was accepted but not offered financial aid, so he decided not to go there.) He’s working on a degree in Chemistry because he wants to be part of finding solutions for these very serious environmental problems.
Fly ash works almost like cement, at least that from the Wyoming coal fields does. The bottom (clinker) ash works great as a base for paving roads.
Our local town, thirty years ago, decided to repave and curb and gutter all the streets in town, using bottom ash for a base.
During the process, one summer some local woman came down with a summer cold and decided the ash was the problem. She raised enough hell that the city stopped and no longer uses ash. Today the paved roads, curbs and gutters are non existent, all because of ONE WOMAN’S COMPLAINTS.