Sustainable manufacturing of new construction material from alkali activation of volcanic tuff

Abstract

The current climate emergency leads to reduction of virgin raw material extraction and promotes circular economy. In this framework, alkali activation of unemployed fraction of grey tuff, combined with glass waste, provides a range of sustainable construction materials. For the sake of sustainability, tuff powder was subjected to rapid attack (30 min), operated by a ‘weak’ alkaline solution (3 M NaOH), and then left to dry at low temperature (75 °C) for 72 h. The addition of Triton X-100 surfactant was considered to obtain foams starting from slurries with different liquid-to-solid ratio. A thermal treatment was applied to selected samples, at low temperature (700 °C). Despite the ‘mild’ activation conditions, all products survived after immersion in boiling water or acid solution, already in the unfired state, according to the formation of a multiphasic gel. The strength-to-density ratio, especially for foams, in both unfired and fired form, compares well with that of already existing construction materials (e.g. it could exceed 5 MPa cm3/g).