Dry bottom ash has the appearance and consistency of natural sand. It is light in color and has a sand paper-like surface texture.
Bottom ash offers good physical chemical characteristics to replace conventional materials.
Like volcanic ash and fly ash of power plants, bottom ash has pozzolans which react with the lime in the Portland cement in the concrete mix, and become very binding. Ghafoori cited three advantages to using bottom ash in lieu of sand in the concrete mix. First of all, using bottom ash alleviates the shortage of natural aggregates such as sand. Some states actually have to import sand to make concrete. While this is not yet the case in Illinois, it is likely to be in the future.