The Effect of Activators on the Fly Ash-Based Geopolymers

2011 ◽  
Vol 477 ◽  
pp. 85-90
Author(s):  
Yun Fen Hou ◽  
Dong Min Wang

This paper studies the influences of concentration and modulus of sodium silicate solution (Na activator) and sodium potassium silicate solution (Na-K activator) on the phase composition, microstructure and strength development in the geopolymers prepared using Class F fly ash. X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and MAS NMR were utilized. It shows that the compressive strength increases while Na activator solution modulus increases, but when modulus exceeds 1.4, the compressive strength decreases, and it decreases markedly while modulus is greater than 2.0. The compressive strength improves with increase of sodium silicate solution concentration, and when concentration is 32%, compressive strength reaches the maximum, and then it reduces with concentration increment. It shows that the compressive strength increases while Na-K activator solution modulus increases, but when modulus exceeds 1.7, the compressive strength decreases, and it decreases markedly while modulus is greater than 2.0. The compressive strength improves with increase of Na-K activator solution concentration, and when concentration is 36%, compressive strength reaches the maximum. The main product of reaction in the geopolymeric material is amorphous alkali aluminosilicate gel.

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (10) ◽  
pp. 3538 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sol Park ◽  
Hammad Khalid ◽  
Joon Seo ◽  
Hyun Yoon ◽  
Hyeong Son ◽  
...  

The present study investigated geopolymerization in alkali-activated fly ash under elevated pressure conditions. The fly ash was activated using either sodium hydroxide or a combination of sodium silicate solution and sodium hydroxide, and was cured at 120 °C at a pressure of 0.22 MPa for the first 24 h. The pressure-induced evolution of the binder gel in the alkali-activated fly ash was investigated by employing synchrotron X-ray diffraction and solid-state 29Si and 27Al MAS NMR spectroscopy. The results showed that the reactivity of the raw fly ash and the growth of the zeolite crystals were significantly enhanced in the samples activated with sodium hydroxide. In contrast, the effects of the elevated pressure conditions were found to be less apparent in the samples activated with the sodium silicate solution. These results may have important implications for the binder design of geopolymers, since the crystallization of geopolymers relates highly to its long-term properties and functionality.


Materials ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 983 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dong Dao ◽  
Hai-Bang Ly ◽  
Son Trinh ◽  
Tien-Thinh Le ◽  
Binh Pham

Geopolymer concrete (GPC) has been used as a partial replacement of Portland cement concrete (PCC) in various construction applications. In this paper, two artificial intelligence approaches, namely adaptive neuro fuzzy inference (ANFIS) and artificial neural network (ANN), were used to predict the compressive strength of GPC, where coarse and fine waste steel slag were used as aggregates. The prepared mixtures contained fly ash, sodium hydroxide in solid state, sodium silicate solution, coarse and fine steel slag aggregates as well as water, in which four variables (fly ash, sodium hydroxide, sodium silicate solution, and water) were used as input parameters for modeling. A total number of 210 samples were prepared with target-specified compressive strength at standard age of 28 days of 25, 35, and 45 MPa. Such values were obtained and used as targets for the two AI prediction tools. Evaluation of the model’s performance was achieved via criteria such as mean absolute error (MAE), root mean square error (RMSE), and coefficient of determination (R2). The results showed that both ANN and ANFIS models have strong potential for predicting the compressive strength of GPC but ANFIS (MAE = 1.655 MPa, RMSE = 2.265 MPa, and R2 = 0.879) is better than ANN (MAE = 1.989 MPa, RMSE = 2.423 MPa, and R2 = 0.851). Sensitivity analysis was then carried out, and it was found that reducing one input parameter could only make a small change to the prediction performance.


2017 ◽  
Vol 744 ◽  
pp. 131-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Zahid ◽  
Nasir Shafiq ◽  
Mohd Fadhil Nuruddin ◽  
Ehsan Nikbakht ◽  
Asif Jalal

This article aims to investigate the compressive strength variation by the addition of metakaolin as a substitute of fly ash in the fly ash based geopolymer mortar. Five, ten and fifteen percent by weight of fly ash was replaced by highly reactive metakaolin. Two type of fly ashes namely, ASTM class F and ASTM class C were used as a base material for the synthesis of geopolymer mortar. Eight molar sodium hydroxide solution mixed with sodium silicate solution was used as alkaline activator. For optimum geopolymerization, mortar was cured at sixty degree Celsius for twenty four hours duration. Results show different behavior of metakaolin replacement on compressive strength for two different types of fly ash based geopolymer mortar. Improvement in compressive strength was seen by addition of metakaolin in ASTM class F fly ash based geopolymer. On the other hand compressive strength was decreased abruptly in fly ash class C based geopolymer up to certain replacement level.


2014 ◽  
Vol 699 ◽  
pp. 15-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rosniza Hanim Abdul Rahim ◽  
Khairun Azizi Azizli ◽  
Zakaria Man ◽  
Muhd Fadhil Nuruddin

Geopolymer is associated with the alkali activation of materials rich in Si and Al, and alkali activator such as sodium hydroxide is used for the dissolution of raw material with the addition of sodium silicate solution to increase the dissolution process. However, the trend of strength development of geopolymer using sodium hydroxide alone is not well established. This paper presents an evaluation on compressive strength of fly ash–based geopolymer by varying curing time with respect to different curing temperature using sodium hydroxide as the only activator. The samples were cured at room temperature and at an elevated temperature (60°C). Further analysis on the microstructure of geopolymer products cured at 60°C was carried out using Field Emission Scanning Microscopy (FESEM). It can be observed that the compressive strength increased as the curing time increased when cured at room temperature; whereas at elevated temperature, the strength increased up to a maximum 65.28 MPa at 14 days but gradually decreased at longer curing time. Better compressive strength can be obtained when the geopolymer was cured at an elevated temperature compared to curing at room temperature.


2013 ◽  
Vol 368-370 ◽  
pp. 1061-1065 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve W.M. Supit ◽  
Faiz U.A. Shaikh ◽  
Prabir K. Sarker

This paper evaluates the effect of Ultrafine Fly Ash (UFFA) and nanoSilica (NS) on compressive strength of high volume fly ash (HVFA) mortar at 7 days and 28 days. Three series of mortar mixes are considered in the first part of this study. In the first series the effect of high content of class F fly ash as partial replacement of cement at 40, 50 and 60% (by wt.) are considered. While in the second and third series, the UFFA and NS are used as partial replacement of cement at 5%, 8%, 10%, 12% and 15% and 1%, 2%, 4%, 6% and 8% (by wt.) of cement, respectively. The UFFA and the NS content which exhibited highest compressive strength in the above series are used in the second part where their effects on the compressive strength of HVFA mortars are evaluated. Results show that the mortar containing 10% UFFA as partial replacement of cement exhibited the highest compressive strength at both 7 and 28 days among all UFFA contents. Similarly, the mortar containing 2% NS as partial replacement of cement exhibited the best performance. Interestingly, the use of UFFA in HVFA mortars did not improve the compressive strength. However, the use of 2% and 4% NS showed improvement in the compressive strength of HVFA mortar containing 40% and 50% fly ash at both ages. The effects of NS and UFFA on the hydration and strength development of HVFA mortar is also evaluated through X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) test. Results also show that the UFFA and NS can significantly reduce the calcium hydroxide (CH) in HVFA mortars.


2019 ◽  
Vol 296 ◽  
pp. 105-111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quang Minh Do ◽  
Thu Ha Bui ◽  
Hoc Thang Nguyen

This paper illustrates a special investigation on geopolymer concrete synthesized from fly ash, sand, coarse aggregates (solid phases) in conditions of sodium silicate solution and seawater (liquid phases). The mixtures of geopolymer concrete were designed with proportion changes of among materials to evaluate effects of the proportions to engineering properties of products. The specimens were molded into cylinder with 200 mm in length and 100 mm in diameter, and then cured at room condition (28 °C, 80 % of humidity) for testing engineering properties for 7 days, 28 days, 90 days, and 180 days. The engineering properties of geopolymer concrete samples included compressive strength (MPa), water absorption (kg/m3), and volumetric weight (kg/m3). The results showed that the fly ash-based geopolymer concrete using sodium silicate solution and seawater was very good performance with value of 180 day-compressive strength at 58 MPa, water absorption and volumetric weight were at 180 kg/m3 and 2200 kg/m3, respectively.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subhash V. Patankar ◽  
Yuwaraj M. Ghugal ◽  
Sanjay S. Jamkar

Geopolymer concrete/mortar is the new development in the field of building constructions in which cement is totally replaced by pozzolanic material like fly ash and activated by alkaline solution. This paper presented the effect of concentration of sodium hydroxide, temperature, and duration of oven heating on compressive strength of fly ash-based geopolymer mortar. Sodium silicate solution containing Na2O of 16.45%, SiO2 of 34.35%, and H2O of 49.20% and sodium hydroxide solution of 2.91, 5.60, 8.10, 11.01, 13.11, and 15.08. Moles concentrations were used as alkaline activators. Geopolymer mortar mixes were prepared by considering solution-to-fly ash ratio of 0.35, 0.40, and 0.45. The temperature of oven curing was maintained at 40, 60, 90, and 120°C each for a heating period of 24 hours and tested for compressive strength at the age of 3 days as test period after specified degree of heating. Test results show that the workability and compressive strength both increase with increase in concentration of sodium hydroxide solution for all solution-to-fly ash ratios. Degree of heating also plays vital role in accelerating the strength; however there is no large change in compressive strength beyond test period of three days after specified period of oven heating.


Materials ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 4202
Author(s):  
Stephan Partschefeld ◽  
Torben Wiegand ◽  
Frank Bellmann ◽  
Andrea Osburg

This paper reports the formation and structure of fast setting geopolymers activated by using three sodium silicate solutions with different modules (1.6, 2.0 and 2.4) and a berlinite-type aluminum orthophosphate. By varying the concentration of the aluminum orthophosphate, different Si/Al-ratios were established (6, 3 and 2). Reaction kinetics of binders were determined by isothermal calorimetric measurements at 20 °C. X-ray diffraction analysis as well as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements were performed on binders to determine differences in structure by varying the alkalinity of the sodium silicate solutions and the Si/Al-ratio. The calorimetric results indicated that the higher the alkalinity of the sodium silicate solution, the higher the solubility and degree of conversion of the aluminum orthophosphate. The results of X-ray diffraction and Rietveldt analysis, as well as the NMR measurements, confirmed the assumption of the calorimetric experiments that first the aluminum orthophosphate was dissolved and then a polycondensation to an amorphous aluminosilicate network occurred. The different amounts of amorphous phases formed as a function of the alkalinity of the sodium silicate solution, indicate that tetrahydroxoaluminate species were formed during the dissolution of the aluminum orthophosphate, which reduce the pH value. This led to no further dissolution of the aluminum orthophosphate, which remained unreacted.


2018 ◽  
Vol 877 ◽  
pp. 193-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suman Saha ◽  
C. Rajasekaran

Production of Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) requires huge quantity of natural resources and energy and it releases large amount of carbon - di - oxide to the environment. Therefore, enormous studies have been carried out throughout the world to establish geopolymer as an alternative binder material for the replacement of OPC to protect the environment. This study intends to explore the effects of alkaline solution on the properties of geopolymer produced with ground granulated blast furnace slag. Properties such as Standard consistency, setting time of slag based geopolymer paste has been determined using Vicat’s apparatus (according to the guidelines given by Indian Standards for OPC). In order to determine the effects of alkaline solution on the properties of geopolymers, the concentration of sodium hydroxide solution has been varied from 6M to 16M and the ratio of sodium silicate solution to sodium hydroxide solution is also varied from 1.0 to 2.0. Results indicate higher standard consistency and significant less setting time for slag based geopolymer paste than that of OPC paste. Compressive strength of the geopolymer paste and mortar cube samples, cured in ambient conditions till the day of testing, is increasing with the increase of the concentration of sodium hydroxide solution. Highest compressive strength is obtained for the samples prepared with alkaline solution having the ratio of sodium silicate solution to sodium hydroxide solution as 1.5. But when the concentration of sodium hydroxide solution is beyond 14M, decreasing trend in compressive strength is observed.


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