Effect of Thermal Curing Processes on The Properties of Geopolymer Paste

Abstract

Today, the usage of geopolymer material with the developing technology was investigated at many studies and research. Solid alumino silicates in the production of geopolymer material were treatment together with some alkaline activators and thereby with cure processes applied to produced materials it provided strength gain a short time and quickly. Therefore, in the synthesis of geopolymer material were known to be use of pozzolans which have rich with alumina and silica. The subject of this study is to production of the geopolymer paste with usage of some alkaline activators together with fly ash (FA) which has pozzolanic properties. In accordance with different thermal curing time for the production of geopolymer paste will be done usage of pozzolans such as FA and with alkaline activators such as sodium silicate solution (water glass (SS)) and NaOH. The samples were prepared with 2.5 cm x 5 cm sizes by hydraulic manual press with 60 bars pressure. The curing processes are applied to the samples are affected the ultimate strengths in the geopolymer material synthesis. Therefore, the oven curing method as thermal curing (at certain temperature, such as 85 °C) was applied for three different curing times such as 2h, 5h and 24 h. After thermal curing processes the samples were stored 7 days, which physical and mechanical tests were done, in the laboratory environment. The end of this study; physical properties such as apparent porosity, water absorption, bulk density and apparent density with compressive strengths were determined for the geopolymer pastes