ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Built Environ.
Sec. Construction Materials
This article is part of the Research TopicInterdisciplinary Research in Geotechnical Engineering and Earth Building MaterialsView all articles
The potential of pulverised rabbit droppings as soil stabiliser in compressed earth blocks (CEBs)
Provisionally accepted
- 1Akenten Appiah-Menka University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development, Kumasi, Ghana
- 2University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
- 3Forestry Research Institute of Ghana, Kumasi, Ghana
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This study was conducted to assess the potential of pulverised rabbit droppings as a stabiliser in compressed earth blocks (CEBs) to minimise the adverse impact of rabbit droppings on the environment and also advance the discourse on sustainable building construction materials. Fresh rabbit droppings were collected, sun-dried, crushed, and sieved with a 2mm mesh. 0%, 2.5%, 5%, 7.5%, 10% and 15% pulverised rabbit droppings were mixed with dried laterite soil to produce the CEBs. Split tensile strength, compressive strength, dry density, water absorption, and erosion tests were conducted on the CEBs. The 5% inclusion of rabbit droppings resulted in an optimum split tensile strength of 0.215 N/mm2, and compressive strength of 1.368 N/mm2, representing 17.5% and 8.1% increase, respectively, over the control. The erosion resistance of the blocks improved with the pulverised rabbit droppings from 5% and above. The water absorption reduced to 2.70% for 5% rabbit droppings inclusion from the control of 5.01%, representing 46.1% reduction. The study concludes that the pulverised rabbit droppings inclusions in CEBs positively improved the properties of CEBs, and therefore, have a great potential to be used as a soil stabiliser in CEBs. It is recommended that 5% pulverised rabbit droppings should be used by CEB manufacturers to improve the properties of the blocks. Further studies should investigate the thermal, fire-resistance, chemical composition, and long-term durability properties of CEBs stabilised with pulverised rabbit droppings.
Keywords: Compressed earth blocks, Compressive Strength, Erosion resistance, Laterite, pulverised rabbit droppings, Split tensile strength, sustainable building construction materials, water absorption
Received: 20 Dec 2025; Accepted: 15 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Teye, Danso, Ackon and Mensah. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Humphrey Danso
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