%0 Journal Article
%T Geopolymer Binders: A Need for Future Concrete Construction
%A K. Srinivasan
%A A. Sivakumar
%J ISRN Polymer Science
%D 2013
%R 10.1155/2013/509185
%X Applications of polymer based binder material can be an ideal choice in civil infrastructural applications since the conventional cement production is highly energy intensive. Moreover, it also consumes significant amount of natural resources for the large-scale production in order to meet the global infrastructure developments. On the other hand the usage of cement concrete is on the increase and necessitates looking for an alternative binder to make concrete. Geopolymer based cementitious binder was one of the recent research findings in the emerging technologies. The present study is aimed at providing a comprehensive review on the various production processes involved in the development of a geopolymer binder. More studies in the recent past showed a major thrust for wider applications of geopolymer binder towards a cost economic construction practice. This also envisages the reduction of global warming due to carbon dioxide emissions from cement plants. 1. Introduction Research studies in the past had shown that fly ash-based geopolymer has emerged as a promising new cement alternative in the field of construction materials. The term geopolymer was first coined and invented by Davidovits [1] which was obtained from fly ash as a result of geo-polymerization reaction. This was produced by the chemical reaction of aluminosilicate oxides (Si2O5, Al2O2) with alkali polysilicates yielding polymeric Si¨CO¨CAl bonds. Hardjito and Rangan [2] demonstrated in their extensive studies that geopolymer based concrete showed good mechanical properties as compared to conventional cement concrete. A comprehensive analysis on the various works done in geopolymer concrete is listed in Table 1. Table 1: Summary of various works done on geopolymer concrete. Geopolymer can be produced with the basic raw materials containing silica and alumina rich mineral composition. Several studies have reported the use of the beneficial utilization of these materials in concrete. Most of the studies investigated the use of alkali activators containing sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate or a potassium hydroxide and potassium silicate. Cheng and Chiu [3] reported the production of geopolymer concrete using slag and metakaolin with potassium hydroxide and sodium silicate as alkaline medium. Palomo et al. [4] produced geopolymers using fly ash with sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate as well as with potassium hydroxide with potassium silicate combinations. The results from the studies exhibited an excellent formation of geopolymer with rapid setting properties. It can be noted that the
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