Recycling timber waste into geopolymer cement bonded wood composites

[Display omitted] •Recycling decontaminated CCA treated wood and general timber waste into a wood geopolymer cement (WGC) composites.•The WGC with the decontaminated wood chips showed higher mechanical properties than both the samples with CCA-treated and non-CCA-treated wood chips.•The compressive strength and MOE decreased as the wood content increased, while the MOR increased with the wood content peaking at WC/B ratio of 0.25.•The WGC with WC/B ratio of 0.1 to 0.25 meets the minimum requirement for making load bearing cinderblocks, while all the samples satisfy the minimum requirement for non-load bearing cinder blocks.•The compressive strength of the WGC generally showed a higher value when compared to similar purpose wood-Portland cement composites. Addressing critical societal challenges, such as climate change, resource depletion, and environmental protection, requires sustainable management of resources. This study reports on the results of an experimental program using waste wood, including chromium copper arsenic (CCA) treated wood, to produce ambiently cured geopolymer cement bonded wood composites (WGC), and the results are very encouraging. The composite exhibited a reasonable compressive strength, which ranged between 7 and 27 MPa inversely corresponding to the amount of wood per binder ratio ranging between 0.1 and 0.4, conferring it the possibility of being used as a building material. The compressive strength of the composite with 40% wood chips showed the lowest compressive strength with values of 9.79, 7.29, and 7.92 MPa for decontaminated, CCA-treated, and non-CCA-treated wood chips, respectively. The results indicated that for all the wood per binder ratios, the use of decontaminated wood chips significantly improves the compressive, flexural, and specific strength of the composites, as well as their ductility, compared to non-decontaminated CCA-treated and non-CCA-treated wood chips. This paves the way for using wood waste in sustainability oriented product development and manufacturing.