• Journal of the Korean Ceramic Society
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• v.56 no.4
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• pp.365-373
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• 2019

Pond ash is a mixture of mostly coarser fly ash and bottom ash. The recycling rate of pond ash is low because pond ash is mixed with seawater and deposited in ponds. The pond ash is also subjected to natural weathering over a period of time. In this study, we investigated whether pond ash can be used as a raw material of geopolymers, without any purification process or through a minimal purification process. In addition, we investigated whether synthetic basalt made by adding foaming agent to geopolymer or casting it into a mold can show the surface of the natural basalt as it is. The highest 7-day compressive strength in geopolymers from pond ash without purification process was 26 MPa. The highest 7-day compressive strength in geopolymers from pond ash with impurities removed through dry sieve analysis was found to improve to 80 MPa. On the other hand, synthetic basalt made with geopolymer was shown to be more advantageous aesthetically when produced by casting it in a silicone mold rather than by adding a foaming agent. Non-purified pond ash can be made into geopolymers having low strength. Pond ash purified by sieving can, without use of an aggregate, be made into geopolymer having high-strength. Also, it is possible to produce synthetic basalt with the same appearance as natural basalt and sufficient strength for commercialization. This process will contribute to the mass consumption and recycling of pond ash.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.381-389
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• 2017

The various types of structural materials that are available in the construction industry nowadays make it necessary to predict their stress-strain behavior. Geopolymer are alternatives for ordinary Portland cement concrete that are made from pozzolans activation. Due to relatively new material, many mechanical specifications of geopolymer are still not yet discovered. In this study, stress-strain behavior has been provided from experiments for unconfined geopolymers. Modulus of Elasticity and stress-strain behavior are critical requirements at analysis process and knowing complete stress-strain curve facilitates structural behavior assessment at nonlinear analysis for structures that have built with geopolymers. This study intends to investigate stress-strain behavior and modulus of elasticity from experimental data that belongs for geopolymers varying in fineness and mix design and curing method. For the sake of behavior determination, 54 types of geopolymer are used. Similar mix proportions are used for samples productions that have different fineness and curing approach. The results indicated that the compressive strength ranges between 7.7 MPa and 43.9 MPa at the age of 28 days curing.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.3-11
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• 2014

Bottom ash from coal fired power plants is not widely used due to a broad range of particle sizes and a high carbon content for producing geopolymers. The effect of mechanical activation on compressive strength of bottom ash- based geopolymers was examined by rod and planetary-ball milling to encourage full-fledged recycling of bottom ash, the main component of pond ash. The amount of amorphous component in the milled ash samples did not change significantly after the mechanical activation. It is presumably because needle-shaped mullite crystals, which is a major crystalline phase and grown in a glassy matrix, possess high strength and toughness, and therefore, they could endure external shocks and remain almost intact. Milling operation, however, decreased the particle size and improved the homogeneity of ash, thereby leading to increase reactivity of milled ash with alkali activators. Rod milling produced a relatively narrow particle size distribution of the milled ash particles; however, it was less effective in reducing the particle size. Nevertheless, it was interesting to observe that rod milling had equal effect on improving the compressive strength of geopolymers up to about 37%, as that of planetary ball milling. Rod milling is believed to be suitable process for enhancing the reactivity of bottom ash for large-scale recycling of bottom ash and producing geopolymers.

• Korean Journal of Materials Research
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• v.20 no.9
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• pp.488-493
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• 2010

Geopolymer is a term covering a class of synthetic aluminosilicate materials with potential use in a number of areas, but mainly as a replacement for Portland cement. In this study, geopolymers with fly ash and meta kaolin were prepared using KOH as an alkali activator and water glass. The effect of water glass on the microstructures and the compressive strength of the geopolymer was investigated. As the amount of water glass increased, the dissolved inorganic binder particles in the geopolymers increased due to polymerization, resulting in a dense microstructure. The meta kaolin-based geopolymer showed a better extent of polymerization and densification than that of the fly ash-based geopolymer. XRD data also suggested that polymerization in meta kaolin-based geopolymers should be active resulting in the formation of an amorphous phase with an increasing amount of water glass. The compressive strength of the geopolymer was also dependent on the amount of water glass. The compressive strength of the geopolymers from both fly ash and meta kaolin increased with an increasing amount of water glass because water glass improved the extent of polymerization of the inorganic binder and resulted in a dense microstructure. However, the addition of water glass to the geopolymer did not seem to be effective for the improvement of compressive strength because the meta kaolin-based geopolymer mainly consisted of a clay component. For this reason, the fly ash-based geopolymer showed a higher value of compressive strength than the meta-kaolin geopolymer.

• Computers and Concrete
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.103-110
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• 2018

This study introduces the supervised committee fuzzy model as a hybrid fuzzy model to predict compressive strength (CS) of geopolymers prepared from alumina-silica products. For this purpose, more than 50 experimental data that evaluated the effect of $Al_2O_3/SiO_2$, $Na_2O/Al_2O_3$, $Na_2O/H_2O$ and Na/[Na+K] on (CS) of geopolymers were collected from the literature. Then, three different Fuzzy Logic (FL) models (Sugeno fuzzy logic (SFL), Mamdani fuzzy logic (MFL), and Larsen fuzzy logic (LFL)) were adopted to overcome the inherent uncertainty of geochemical parameters and to predict CS. After validating the model, it was found that the SFL model is superior to MFL and LFL models, but each of the FL models has advantages to predict CS. Therefore, to achieve the optimal performance, the supervised committee fuzzy logic (SCFL) model was developed as a hybrid method to combine the benefits of individual FL models. The SCFL employs an artificial neural network (ANN) model to re-predict the CS of three FL model predictions. The results also show significant fitting improvement in comparison with individual FL models.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.257-263
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• 2019

Lightweight geopolymers were fabricated with non-milled IGCC slag and Si sludge as a bloating material. The relationship between addition amount of Si sludge and physical/chemical properties of lightweight geopolymers was investigated. When the geopolymers were made by mixing IGCC slag, alkali activator, and more than 10 wt.% Si sludge, the temperature of the geopolymer pastes reached higher than 130℃ in a few minutes. This exothermic reaction accelerated the geopolymer reaction; however, it was difficult to make geopolymer specimens because of a rapid bloating reaction. Both compressive strength and density of the specimens tend to decrease with an addition of Si sludge; however, there was little difference in both compressive strength and density with addition of Si sludge more than 10 wt.%. Because there was a limit to get low density geopolymers by simply increasing the addition of Si sludge, the control of pore size and distribution of geopolymer is more important by controlling flow rate of the paste through the control of W/S ratio. Therefore, it is important to control process conditions, appropriate W/S ratio for the bloating than the control of Si sludge. The optimum W/S ratio was 0.20 for the addition of Si sludge less than 30 wt.% and W/S ratio should be more than 0.28 for the addition of Si sludge more than 30 wt.%, although there was no practical application in fact.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.115-116
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• 2011

TNowadays, the global warming is the most serious problem in the world and the cement industry is one of the factors which are responsible for it. Therefore, the development of new binders with enhanced environment and durability performance is needed. In this regard, the geopolymer technology is one of the breakthrough developments as an alternative to the portland cement. This paper shows some points of view on the development of geopolymers by reviewing previous researches including historical background, constituents of geopolymers, process of geopolymerization and several applications of geopolymer. Hence, the author proposes two research trends which are finding the best combination between the source materials and alkali liquid then, evaluating the corrosion for the metal bars.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2023.11a
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• pp.193-194
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• 2023

Recently, research is being conducted on geopolymers using industrial by-products as a cement substitute to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the construction industry. Since geopolymers use industrial by-products, their performance varies depending on the type of alkali activator used, curing temperature, etc. Therefore, as part of a study to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the construction industry, this study mixed blast furnace slag powder and ferronickel slag powder as cement substitutes, and compared and analyzed the fluidity and compressive strength of no-cement composites according to curing temperature.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.249-255
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• 2017

Using a magnetic separation process, pond ash generated in thermoelectric power plants was separated into magnetic materials and nonmagnetic materials in order to make it into a raw material of geopolymers and unburned carbon; screening characteristics according to the particle sizes and magnet strength levels of the pond ash were observed. Based on the results of magnetic separation into fine particle (0.15~0.84 mm) and rough particle (0.84~2.4 mm) pond ash using 3000 G magnets, the weight fraction and ignition loss of nonmagnetic materials were found to be higher than those of magnetic materials, regardless of the particle size. In the case of fine particle pond ash, when the magnet strength was increased from 3000 G to 10000 G, even those materials that were weakly magnetic were separated into magnetic materials, leading to drastic increases in the weight fraction of magnetic materials, such that the ignition loss accounted for 66.9 % (22.8 wt%) of the entire ignition loss of 32.6 wt%, despite of the low ignition loss. Based on the results of measurement of the compressive strength levels of geopolymers made of magnetic-separated rough particle pond ash, the compressive strength of geopolymers made of magnetic materials containing small amounts of unburned carbon was found to be 20 MPa.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.247-257
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• 2021

This study was started to investigate why autoclave curing (AC) specimen showed an improvement in compressive strength after immersion in water for a long time, although AC specimen did not showed a high initial compressive strength unlike our expectations. Distilled water and alkaline solutions were used for immersion and three different curing methods were engaged. It was expected that the compressive strength would be improved after immersion in alkaline solutions; however, there was little difference in compressive strength after 21 day immersion because both new crystallites produced by additional geopolymerization and expansion caused by the alkaline aggregate reaction may prevent the additional improvement in compressive strength. It was concluded that in order to secure the long-term commonality and underwater stability of the geopolymers, it is desirable aging geopolymers while immersing it underwater for more than 21 days after curing using an autoclave.