9802198 Kawatra Fly ashes produced by the new low-NOx coal combusters contain high concentrations (>6% by weight) of unburned carbon, making them less usable as concrete additives because of the adsorptive properties of the carbon. The objective of this research is to better understand the behavior of fly-ash in binder applications, to use this information to determine methods for controlling the kinetics of the binding reaction and to optimize fly-ash binder characteristics for particular industrial applications. Such knowledge and understanding could lead to the economic use of fly-ash as binders, in foundry sands, for example. Specific questions to be answered by this research are as follows: 1. What are the effects of fly-ash composition on binder properties? 2. What are the properties of particulates which will affect both their interaction with fly-ash binders and their utilization by industry? 3. What are the details of the fly-ash binding mechanism and how can binding be optimized? 4. How can the behavior of fly-ash based binders be optimized for various industrial applications? Successful use as binders would not only reduce the volume of materials requiring disposal, but would reduce the use of other materials used as binders. Therefore pollution prevention would be realized by waste recovery and reuse. ***
