NTPC NETRA and CSIR-Central Building Research Institute(CBRI), Roorkee have jointly developed high strength fly ash based geo-polymer concrete for use in road construction. Indian Road Congress (IRC), New Delhi has accredited the construction of road by “Geopolymer Concrete” Developed/promoted jointly by NETRA-NTPC Ltd and CSIR-CBRI Roorkee recently.
The project can now be replicated across the country and will help in addressing the environmental issues associated with huge quantities of fly ash being generated by coal based power plants all over India.
The IRC accreditation was based on construction of geo-polymer concrete road stretch of 50m long and 3m wide single lane at CBRI Roorkee & 100m long and 6.5 m wide double lane at NTPC Dadri as per IRC specifications using NTPC Dadri fly ash.
Fly Ash will be used as a binder in place of conventional cement and does not require water curing. Unlike in conventional concrete roads, cracks would not appear in this Geopolymer concrete road as it is having negligible shrinkage. The road is more environment friendly as it is made of waste generated from power plant and steel plants and it will avoid CO2 emissions by using fly ash in place of the cement for road construction. In these case both dry lean concrete and pavement quality concrete have been constructed with geopolymer concrete. This geo-polymer road stretch is first of its kind in India which has been accredited by Indian Road Congress.
NTPC plans to use this technology one Kilometre geopolymer concrete road at one of its projects.