Development of Ternary Blend Geopolymer Mortars

Abstract

Concrete, which is now the second most consumed substance in the world after the water has cement as the main ingredient. There is a continuous increase in pollution due to the enormous volumes of CO2 that are released into the atmosphere during the production of cement. The invention of geopolymer concrete proceeded to reduce environmental pollution by replacing cement with supplementary cementitious ingredients such as flyash, GGBS, metakaolin, silica fume, etc. With sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate functioning as caustic activators, the current research intends to develop a ternary blend flyash-based geopolymer mortar using flyash, GGBS, and alccofine as supplementary cementitious ingredients. Depending on how well binary mixes performed in terms of compressive strength, the proportions of the materials in the ternary blend were fixed. Two binary blends, flyash-GGBS and flyash-alccofine, were produced using a NaOH solution with an 8M concentration and different ratios. The ratio of sodium hydroxide to water glass was 1:2.5. Alccofine was substituted by 2.5%, 5%, 10%, and 20% in their respective blends with flyash, whereas GGBS was replaced by 10%, 20%, 40%, and 80%. On the binary mixtures, a compressive strength test was performed. The results demonstrated that when 40% GGBS and 20% alccofine were replaced with flyash in their respective blends, the compressive strength was increased. The composition of the ternary blend was established as being, 40% flyash, 40% GGBS, and 20% alccofine. Normal consistency and compressive strength tests were conducted on different proportions of the ternary blend. The replacement of 40% GGBS and 20% alccofine yielded the greatest values of normal consistency and compressive strength of all the ternary mixes. The outcomes demonstrated that the binary mixtures’ chosen optimal ternary blend proportion was acceptable.