A. Indigenous Architecture as Basic Architectural Design
3.1.16
RECYCLE-MATERIAL BLOCK FROM REPULPED PAPER
FOR WALL OF LOW-RISE BUILDING
V. Totok NOERWASITO
Department of Architecture
Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember, Surabaya, Indonesia
totoknoerwasito@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
In this decade demand of low-rise buildings for low and middle-income people increase in metropolis of
Indonesia, this matter represents effect of growth of residents. Development for this building is very urgent and
building construction must be executed with using fast construction system. In other hand, design Issue about
sustainable design must be paid attention to design this building. One of characteristics of building material to
supports sustainable design with use recycle material for element of building.
This paper discussed research about material for the wall of interior in low-rise building which is processed
with utilize raw material from repulped paper, namely mush from waste of domestic paper. This wall is
representing lightweight wall and it used as partition wall.
Raw material of this wall material is repulped paper while additional material is soil that contains a lot of sand
and cement in low quantity used as an adhesive of materials. This research is experiment research with uses
methods of compaction and drying with natural air. As experimental variables are percentage of repulped paper
and soil percentages, while cement represents independent variable. Percentage of material is measured by
weight of material.
The problem in this research is how to find way to determine percentage and weight of composition material is
optimum in efficient of quantity material and has standard strength. The result of this research is ideal of
composition of repulped paper, soil and cement for building wall. Ideal composition contains 80% repulped
paper, 20% soil and 10% cement from weight of repulped paper. Density composition is 0.93 g/cm3. That
composition meets standard for wall building.
Keywords: recycle; repulped paper; soil; composition; lightweight
I.
INTRODUCTION
The need for housing in big cities in Indonesia is growing; this is in line with the population due to
urbanization. In connection with this problem, the government announced the construction of low-rise
building in major cities in Indonesia. The program was soon realized to solve the housing problem.
Building design, construction and building materials systems affect the accelerated development of
these buildings.
Relatively rapid construction system for building affordable housing is a precast system; the system
uses building elements that are printed in mass before reinstalling. On the other hand, building
materials supporting this system are building materials, which have characteristics of light for vertical
transport of energy becomes lower.
In addition to the material qualifies, as a fast and relatively light in construction, building materials
must meet the concept of sustainable architecture or green design. The concept is a world issues about
environmental. The current building design must use materials that do not damage the environment
and reduce the use of building materials that cannot be renewable. In other words, building materials
should use as many building materials that can be reused (reuse material) or the result of recycling
(recycle material). According Amatruda (2004), recycle materials is low embodied energy material, so
the buildings have walls with this material would have embodied a relatively low energy buildings.
Alternative wall materials are lightweight and allows for the system of precast, lightweight and
environmentally friendly is the wall of the repulped paper. This raw material is recycled building
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materials from waste paper that cannot be used again. Waste paper raises problem in waste system of
urban, and would be more useful if it is processed into walls material.
The walls of buildings made from the repulped paper are currently used for low-cost building
materials that have minimal impact on the environment (Manuel, 2002). A lot of paper waste meets
waste landfills; on the other hand, millions of people live in sub-standard housing. With the use of
waste paper or waste paper as raw housing wall will be able to solve both these problems.
Paper made of polyethylene and a layer of aluminum (Tanumiharja, 2003). According Djamaran
(1993) and (Joedodibroto, 1983), waste paper is a lignocellulosic fiber material that can be recycled
into pulp and paper. Paper pulp sludge or derived from processing waste into paper pulp fiber, contain
minerals such as kaolinite and calcium carbonate, the amount depending on the type of paper, usually
50-20 g/m2 (Andang, 2008).
Possible use of other raw materials to add strength to repulped paper block is sand or clay. Sand is the
basic ingredient of good but relatively expensive, whereas soil easily available and relatively cheap
price. The use of soil to mix repulped block are rare. Therefore, soil will be used as additional
ingredients in this research. Repulped wall is not resistant to weather, so the wall needs to get out of
wall coverings.
The question in this research is how to determine the optimal composition of pulp and soil to produce
a compressive strength of wall building materials that meet the standards. The results of this study are
the composition of the optimum wall repulped peper, which is the beginning of pulp-walled building
design. Repulped paper wall is a wall of buildings in Indonesia the concept of sustainable architecture
or green design.
II.
METHOD
The study was conducted to find the ideal composition of the mixture of repulped paper, soil and
cement. The main raw material is repulped paper, whereas soil as an additional material to increase the
volume of repulped paper. Cement is the adhesive material.
This research was an experimental study that uses a variable composition from a mixture of raw
materials. The method used to increase the mechanical strength is by compressed the mixture. Drying
method uses a natural way, i.e., drying without using the combustion process as it is commonly done
in the process of making bricks. A further measurement of compressive strength was measured using
gauge press.
The main raw materials in this study are repulped paper, soil and cement. repulped paper waste paper
is the result of immersion or domestic households are not used anymore. The paper used is a waste, so
it does not reduce the function of the paper. Used soil containing sand, clay and silt, in this study the
preferred content of the soil is Sand, because a lot of influence on the adhesion with cement.
According Rigassi (1995), a good percentage, Sand content in the soil structure is 30-40%. Cement
used is of good quality, relatively new and there are no clumps.
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The stages of the research activities as follows (see Figure 1):
Paper domestic
Soil
repulped paper
Last research
Yang sejenis
Determining composition
Cement
Homogen
Moulding and pressing
Curing in humid condition
Curing in dry condition
Compression Test
Optimation
Selection of an ideal mixture
The optimum composition of blocks
Figure 1. Flow work of research
Repulped paper and soil is variable, while the cement is a fixed variable. The composition of materials
and supporting materials is measured by the weight of material. Determination of repulped paper
composition is greater than the soil based on the consideration that the repulped paper is the main
material in this study, while the soil just as additional material to enlarge the volume of material.
Determining the composition of cement in this study is based on that during this research by using a
good percentage of soil is 10% of material weight. Material composition can be seen in the table
below (Table 1).
Table 1. Percentage of repulped paper, soil and cement
No. Samples
I
II
III
IV
V
repulped paper
%
100%
80
70
60
50
soil %
0
20
30
40
50
Cement % of
repulped paper
10
10
10
10
10
Sample is a cylindrical shape with a diameter of 3.5 cm and height 4 cm. Each composition has five
samples. Samples compacted until it reaches the appropriate height. Percentage and optimum
compressive strength was analyzed by comparing the samples using the Gradient method. This method
uses 2-axis variable on its axis, the compressive strength of samples found on the Y-axis and the
percentage of repulped paper samples found on the X-axis the optimum sample would have a balance
between the percentages of repulped paper with strong compression.
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III.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The paper used in this study is the paper that comes from household waste that is a scrap of paper
books or papers that are not used anymore. In general, the type of paper obtained were HVS paper
type, because the paper is the paper that most of waste households and offices (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. Pieces of paper ready to be destroyed
Figure 3. Repulped paper
Soaking the paper uses plain water. The main purpose of soaking is to destroy the paper so it can be
slurry, in addition to separate paper from the adhesive and the fibers within the paper. Dipping time
depends on the type of paper; the average paper may crash take a week. To speed up the process of
destruction of paper required mixing process. Paper into pulp can be seen in figure 3
Drying is done by compressing the pulp until the water contained in the slurry out of the pulp. The
dried pulp into clumps (see figure 4)
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A. Indigenous Architecture as Basic Architectural Design
Figure 4. Clump repulped paper
Soil mixture obtained in general are still in humid conditions and mixed with other organic
materials, while additional material for this experiment soil material should be free from
organic material. It is necessary for the drying process by using sunlight. Condition soil can
be seen in figure 5.
Figure 5. Condition of the soil
The dried soil should be separated from organic materials and other material embedded in the soil.
After the soil was cleaned of any dirt that disrupts the bonding process, the soil until finely crushed.
The fine soil sieved using 2 mm sieve. (See Figure 6).
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A. Indigenous Architecture as Basic Architectural Design
Figure 6. Soil sieve
The content of the soil can be identified by using sedimentation manually or with laboratory tests. In
this study the identification of the content of this soil, use sedimentation method manually. Based on
observations of soil to be used as experimental material found in three layers, the higher layers of sand
and silt by 40% from the high ground in the glasses. Soil that meets the requirements as the raw
material contains 40-45% sand (Rigassi, 1995). It can be concluded that the soil used meets
requirements as a raw material.
The process of mixing between the repulped paper, soil and cement mixing begins with these elements
in dry conditions, with the aim that the composition of the mixture can be homogeneous. Mixing
process begins with mixing between the repulped paper and soil. After both became homogeneous,
cement is mixed into the both composition. In fact mixing between the repulped paper with soil in dry
conditions is difficult to do, because the repulped paper of forming clots is very difficult to mix with
soil that has been finely.
Sample manufacture is done by using the compaction mould. A problem in this compaction is water
coming out of the mix come against the force of press compaction. Therefore, that compaction is done
by gradually and water coming out of the mixture can be reduced, because the water contains cement.
This is a weakness in the process of compaction. Because of reduced water of cement can affect to
decrease compressive strength in the sample. The number of samples is 5 pieces for each composition,
so the total sample is 25 pieces. The condition of the sample can be seen in Figure 7.
Figure 7. Condition of the samples
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For samples not dry quickly which causes cracks in the sample, the sample should be kept in humid
conditions. For that sample must always be soaked every day. Duration wetting performed in this
study for 3 days and samples are protected from direct sunlight by covering with plastic sheeting.
While in the protection of plastic sheets, samples are “sweating" which means the water removed from
the samples. After quite moist sample was dried by wind, and still be protected from direct sunlight.
This natural drying time is 11 days. Further samples are ready to be tested.
Compressive strength test results from each sample composition can be seen in Table 2. Based on the
composition table, high compressive strength is a composition has 80% repulped paper. While the
composition of which has the lowest compressive strength is 100% repulped paper composition.
Minimum compressive strength of walls of the building is 30 kg/cm2. So that, almost all samples meet
the requirements as building walls, except the samples have a composition of 100% repulped paper.
All samples are mixed with soil has a compressive strength above the minimum standard.
Table 2. Composition of mixture and compressive strength
.
No.
Samples
Composition of
repulped paper%
I
II
III
IV
V
100
80
70
60
50
Compressive
strength
kg/cm2
11.11
112.50
90.97
58.25
91.57
Density of samples was relatively similar for all samples, which is 0.97 g/cm3. This indicates that the
block of repulped paper is light compared with red brick or hollow concrete. Red brick has a density
of 1.7 g/cm3 and hollow concrete has density of 1.4 g/cm3. Thus, the repulped paper block is
categorized as a lightweight material.
Block pulp in these experiments were soaked in water for 3 days without any damage or change in
shape. However, given the raw material of this block is paper, the possibility of wall absorption of
water would still exist. Therefore, the repulped paper wall will need to be coated by plaster to keep the
bad influences of the outside air.
Block repulped paper ideal in this study is blocks that uses as much repulped paper but it has relatively
high compressive strength. In figure 8 shows, the composition use highest repulped paper is sample I,
whereas sample V uses repulped paper is minimal. Largest compressive strength is owned by sample
II. Smallest compressive strength possessed by the sample I. Samples II has a high compressive
strength and using the largest pulp, it is the optimum sample.
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Figure 8. The relationship between compression strength with percentage of repulped paper
Sample II is the optimum sample and an appropriate composition is used as the composition of the
repulped paper wall. So that the composition of the pulp 80%, soil 20% and 10% cement is a
composition that can be used as wall building low-rise building. The walls on the outside need to be
plastered to resistance to climate
IV.
CONCLUSION
Composition of repulped paper without using a mixture of soil has a low compressive strength and do
not qualify as a building wall materials. The wall has a relatively lightweight.
Ideal composition in this study has a maximum quantity of repulped paper and high compressive
strength. This composition contained the repulped paper 80%, 20% soil and 10% cement. This shows
that the use of a large quantity of repulped paper can still produce a greater compressive strength.
Repulped paper walls have compressed strength is higher than brick and hollow block walls. The wall
also has a lighter load than brick or hollow block wall. So that, this wall can replace brick or hollow
block walls in low-rise building.
Use the maximum repulped paper will be able to reduce paper waste in urban areas, so that the waste
problem can be reduced by using waste paper as building material in accordance with the standard
wall.
The walls of the repulped paper is a new alternative for affordable housing wall for the future, because
the raw materials are relatively cheap and easily available for commercial and domestic activities
associated with the paper is still running.
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