THE INFLUENCE OF INITIAL MATERIALS ON THE COMPRESSIVE STRENGTH OF GEOPOLYMER SOILS

Abstract

In recent years, geopolymers have received significant attention because they show environmental benefits, such as a reduction in the consumption of natural resources and a decrease in the net production of CO2. In addition, as green material, soil has low carbon dioxide production emissions compared to other building materials. In this research, soil was combined with activator alkaline to produce hardening materials as geopolymer soils. An alkaline solution with sodium hydroxide, sodium silicate and fly ash was used. The influence of clay content on the geopolymer soils’ compressive strength was investigated. The best strengths were obtained from 5% to 12% clay content. SEM photos were also taken from specimens to investigate the structure of geopolymer soils. When combined with soil and fly ash in geopolymerization, fly ash reacted to the alkali solution quickly. The relationships between many variables such as clay content, fly ash, alkaline solution, curing time, and curing temperature were investigated by using a statistical analysis program with over 100 initial parameters. These results also indicate that the use of soils in geopolymer soil should have been limited. Additionally, increasing the sodium silicate in the alkaline liquid affected the geopolymerization reaction significantly. However, the suitable Si on the alkaline solution and soil should be limited.