Effects of using powdered waste glass as cement replacement on the fresh and mechanical properties of concrete: A review

As the rate of usage of concrete continues to increase, the acquisition of the required raw materials from nature for the process of concrete production is also increasing. Using waste materials instead of, or even as a partial replacement for, concrete ingredients might reduce the need to extract raw materials from nature, and this article thus offers a review of previous work on the use of various types of waste glass (fluorescent lamps, packaging glass, food glass, medical glass, door glass, window glass, and coloured and transparent flat glass) as a partial replacement for cement in concrete to study the effects of such replacement on the fresh and mechanical properties of the resulting concrete. The results suggest that the optimum range of use for waste glass replacement to provide properties comparable to those of the control mix is between 10 and 15%. Additionally, the influence of such replacement on the fresh and mechanical properties of concrete is dependent on both particle grading and chemical composition according to the reviewed data. In particular, using 10% waste glass from crushed building waste glass increases compressive strength by 4.6% as compared to the control mix, whereas using 10% heavyweight waste glass causes a 5.2% reduction in the comparative compressive strength.