The Effect of Variations in Coconut Fiber Ash Waste as Added Material in Mortar

Indonesia is the largest coconut fiber producing country in the world and has coconut plantation land with an area of close to 3.74 ha. The plantation products will be used to meet human needs, while the rest of the utilization will become waste. The process of destroying waste naturally usually takes place slowly, causing a pile of waste. Coconut fiber ash contains minerals consisting of silica, alumina, and iron oxides. This shows that coconut fiber ash has the potential to be used as a construction material. The previous research shows that the use of coconut fiber ash in large quantities as a cement substitute has the potential to reduce compression strength, so it cannot be utilized in large quantities. In this research, coconut fiber ash would be used as an added material and not as a cement substitute to utilize the waste as much as possible. This study would examine the influence of mortar characteristics on the addition of coconut fiber ash. The variation in the percentage of coconut fiber ash used is 0%, 2.5%, 5%, 7.5% and 10% to the weight of cement. The composition of mortar’s mixture would be based on SNI 03-6825-2002. The studied characteristics of the mortar are the following: density (unit weight), absorption and compression strength. From the result, it is concluded that the addition of coconut fiber in mortar mixture increases the density and the water absorption percentage. The optimum value of compression strength test result is 32.61 MPa, obtained from the mixture with the addition 2.5% of coconut fiber ash.