Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

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Materials Today: Proceedings

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Properties of blast furnace slag geopolymer concrete

Prashant G Sawarkar a, Amol Pote b, Anant Lal Murmu c,⇑
a
G H Raisoni Institute of Engineering and Technology, Department of Civil Engineering, Nagpur 440016, India
b
G H Raisoni College of Engineering and Management, Department of Civil Engineering, Pune 412207, India
c
Netaji Subhas University of Technology, Department of Civil Engineering, New Delhi 110075, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Cement being the most consumed commodity after water contributes about 8% CO2 to the total amount
Available online xxxx of CO2 emitted. Therefore, alternate binders are being explored to make concrete production more sus-
tainable. Geopolymer an inorganic polymer is being projected as one of the potential alternatives.
Keywords: However, most of the published literature recommend the use of highly concentrated alkali hydroxides
Geopolymer concrete of sodium or Potassium as alkali activator or a combination of alkali hydroxide with silicates for geopoly-
Granulated Blast Furnace Slag mer synthesis, which are unsafe for workers. Furthermore, heat curing regimes of 24 to 120 h at temper-
Sustainable concrete
ature ranging 60 to 85 °C are also recommended. However, heat curing of structural components in a
Ambient curing
Geopolymer
building is not possible in most of the in-situ construction projects, except for the production of prefab-
ricated structural components. Furthermore, the silica and alumina rich wastes are preferred choice as
the precursor for geopolymer synthesis. Therefore, an experimental study is carried out to produce blast
furnace slag based geopolymer concrete using sodium silicate as the alkali solution. The geopolymer con-
crete was cured for 7, 14 and 28 days at ambient temperature to assess the mechanical properties of the
developed concrete. The results of compressive and flexural strength test indicate the possibility of mak-
ing ambient cured geopolymer concrete using sodium silicate and granulated blast furnace slag for struc-
tural application.
Copyright Ó 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Confer-
ence on Advances in Construction Materials and Structures.

1. Introduction strength. Water cement ratio being one of the controlling factors
for strength development [3]. On the contrary, a strong alkali solu-
‘‘Geopolymer” an inorganic polymer is slowly gaining confidence tion is used for geopolymer synthesis [4,5]. Further, it is believed
of the engineers for field application. Some of the field application that low concentration of alkali solution results in lower dissolu-
includes the construction of aircraft taxiway and apron in Queens- tion of raw materials and lower strength as a consequence [6].
land, Australia [1] and a 50 m geopolymer road developed as per Thus, the researchers end up using highly concentrated alkali solu-
the specifications of Indian road congress [2]. Apart from geopoly- tion prepared with either NaOH or KOH and are often combined
mer being considered as low carbon alternative for Ordinary Port- with alkali silicates like Na2SiO3 and K2SiO3, respectively. The com-
land Cement, its excellent for the production of concrete. bination of NaOH and Na2SiO3 being the preferred choice [7,8].
Traditionally, concrete is made by mixing cement, sand and However, strong alkaline solution prepared with NaOH or KOH
aggregate in a fixed proportion and then adding water in the fixed are highly corrosive and unsafe to handle [9,10]. Therefore, a con-
ratio with respect to cement content to achieve desired strength. centration of  5 M is often recommended in order to ensure safety
Out of the three raw materials, cement reacts is the only reactive of workers during handling. However, handling highly concen-
material, which reacts readily with water to produce binding prop- trated NaOH of KOH still puts the workers and engineers working
erties by forming calcium silicate hydrate (C-S-H) gel. The C-S-H on the project at risk. Therefore, it was decided to use sodium sil-
gel so formed binds the two filler materials and fills the voids to icate (SS) as the alkali solution for geopolymer synthesis.
form a dense compact structure, which results in development of Apart from using highly concentrated NaOH and KOH solution,
it is often recommended to cure geopolymer at elevated tempera-
⇑ Corresponding author. tures of 60 °C and more, which often is limits its use for. For exam-
E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Lal Murmu). ple, Yahya et al. [11], found that curing palm oil boiler ash based

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2023.03.179
2214-7853/Copyright Ó 2024 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the International Conference on Advances in Construction Materials and Structures.

Please cite this article as: Prashant G Sawarkar, A. Pote and A. Lal Murmu, Properties of blast furnace slag geopolymer concrete, Materials Today: Proceed-
ings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2023.03.179
Prashant G Sawarkar, A. Pote and A. Lal Murmu Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

geopolymer at 80 °C for 24 h results in maximum strength gain. process as presented by Thomas et al. [14]. The methodology
Similarly, Ahmari and Zhang [5], recommend a curing temperature adopted for mix proportioning geopolymer concrete is shown in
of 90 °C as the optimum temperature for producing copper mine Fig. 3. The quantity of CA, FA, GGBFS and SS for geopolymer con-
tailing based geopolymer bricks. Elevated temperature curing for crete is calculated considering 2400 kg/m3 as the unit weight
time ranging from 24 h to even 90 days is recommended for accel- and keeping the SS/GGBFS ratio constant at 0.3. The aggregate frac-
erated strength gain of geopolymer. However, the need of heat cur- tion which consists of FA and CA generally occupies about 60 to
ing geopolymer concrete limits the application of geopolymer for 75% of the concrete volume. However, for the purpose of this
in-situ construction [12]. Therefore, a method to make geopolymer experiment the combined volume of FA and CA in the concrete is
concrete which sets and gains strength like normal ordinary Port- taken as 70 and 77% for mix FACA70 and FACA77, respectively. Fur-
land cement (OPC), however with mechanical and durability prop- ther, the quantity of CA and FA is fixed at 70 and 30% of the total
erties comparable to OPC concrete. aggregate quantity in both the mixes, respectively.
Owing to the risk involved in handling highly alkaline hydrox- The samples for compression, flexural and water absorption test
ide solutions, the present experimental work aims to study the fea- are made by weighing the required quantity of the FA, CA and
sibility of using SS as the alkaline solution to synthesize blast GGBFS and then dry mixed together for 5 min. While continuing
furnace slag (BFS) based geopolymer concrete. Further, this exper- to mix FA, CA and GGBFS, measured SS was poured gradually into
imental work also investigates the effect of ambient curing on the mixture such that the ratio of SS to GGBFS is 0.3. The mixing
GGBFS geopolymer concrete on the strength development at vary- was continued till a mix of uniform color was obtained. The mix-
ing quantity of aggregates. ture was then tested for slump according to IS 1199 [15]. After
measuring slump of the concrete, water was added to the mixture,
2. Materials and methods such that the ratio of water to GGBFS is 0.14 to obtain a slump of at
least 100 mm. The prepared mixture is then transferred into the
2.1. Materials mold of 150 mm  150 mm size cube for compressive and beam
of size 100 mm  100 mm  500 mm for flexural strength test
In this experiment, fine aggregate (FA) belonging to zone III and and vibrated on vibrating table to remove entrapped air. The spec-
coarse aggregate (CA) with 20 mm nominal size were used as per IS imen casted for compression and flexure were demolded after 24 h
383–1970 [13]. The particle size distribution of FA and CA is shown and are left open for curing. The compressive and flexural strength
in Fig. 1. The FA and CA have specific gravity and water absorption of the concrete made with geopolymer was determined according
of 2.65 and 2.70 and 1.62% and 1.34%, respectively. Apart from FA to IS 516 [16] at curing ages of 7, 14 and 28 days. An average of
and CA, ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) was pro- three specimen is reported as the strength in compression and
cured from local vendor for this experiment. The major oxides pre- flexural. The water absorption is determined as per ASTM C20 [17].
sent in GGBFS are shown in Table 1. It shows that it contains Apart from compression and flexural strength, the surface mor-
significant amount of SiO2 (35.40%) and CaO (34.33%), which make phology of GGBFS based geopolymer paste was analyzed using
about 69.73% of GGBFS. It also contains about 16.82% Al2O3 and Nova Nano FE-SEM 450 Scanning electron microscope.
9.95% of MgO. Sodium silicate (Na2SiO3) which consist of about
10% Na2O, 27% SiO2 and 62.5% water was used as the alkaline solu- 3. Results and discussions
tion for geopolymer concrete production. Sodium silicate is
denoted as SS. 3.1. Compressive strength

2.2. Methods Fig. 4 shows the strength of FACA70 and FACA77 GGBS based
geopolymer concrete at 7, 14 and 28 days curing period. It shows
The mix proportion for FACA70 and FACA77 geopolymer con- that as the age of specimen increases from 7 to 14 and 14 to
crete using GGBFS as the precursor is shown in Table 2. The process 28 days, the strength of FACA70 as well as FACA77 geopolymer
of production of geopolymer concrete is shown in Fig. 2, which concrete increases. The control sample also gains strength with
slightly deviates from the conventional geopolymer production age, however with a slower rate. Further, the strength of geopoly-
mer decreased on increasing the quantity of aggregate from 70% to
77%. While, the difference in the compressive strength of FACA70
and FACA77 is smaller (about 12.5%) in the early curing ages of
7 days, the difference goes on increasing at higher curing ages of
14 and 28 days. The difference in strength of FACA70 and FACA77
at 14 and 28 days becomes as high as 16.36 and 21.53%, respec-
tively. The decrease in the strength of geopolymer concrete with
increase in the aggregate content is attributed to the formation
of large number voids, which makes the grain to grain transfer of
load less efficient. Thus, results in lower compressive strength.
However, both the ambient cured mixes obtain sufficiently high
strength in comparison to the control. Thus, it can be concluded
that GGBFS geopolymer concrete develops strength for being used
as structural element and it sets normally like OPC cement con-
crete at ambient temperature and humidity conditions.

3.2. Flexural strength

The flexural strength of FACA70, FACA77 geopolymer concrete

is compared with the flexural strength of control in Fig. 5. During
Fig. 1. Particle size distribution of fine and coarse aggregate. the initial curing period of 7 day, the control sample developed
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Prashant G Sawarkar, A. Pote and A. Lal Murmu Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Table 1
Chemical composition of granulated blast furnace slag.

Oxide SiO2 Al2O3 Fe2O3 CaO MgO Others

Chemical composition (%) 35.40 16.82 0.35 34.33 9.95 0.38

Table 2 3.4. SEM analysis

Mix proportion for geopolymer concrete.

Mix? FACA70 FACA77 Fig. 7 shows the morphology of the GGBS geopolymer paste. It
CA (kg/m3) 1176 1293.6
can be observed from the SEM micrograph, that the reaction of
FA (kg/m3) 504 554.4 GGBS with SS forms a continuous paste of geopolymer. Although,
GGBFS content (kg/m3) 553.85 424.61 few micro-cracks can be observed on the surface, however are very
SS (kg/m3) 166.15 127.4 small and are discontinuous in nature. Thus, the reaction of GGBS
SS/GGBFS ratio 0.3 0.3
with SS from a very dense microstructure. The observation in the
Water (kg) 77.54 59.44
SEM images is also consistent with the water absorption values
of FACA70 and FACA77 geopolymer concrete. Thus, the concrete
produced using GGBS based geopolymer will have lower
higher flexural strength as compared to FACA77. However, at
permeability.
longer curing periods of 14 days, FACA77 geopolymer concrete sur-
passed the flexural strength of control. Further, FACA70 recorded
higher flexural strength as compared to the control sample at all 4. Conclusions
curing ages. Flexural strength of FACA70 as well as FACA77 was
found to increase on curing the samples at ambient temperature The feasibility of manufacturing geopolymer concrete using SS
for longer period of time. However, flexural strength developed and GGBFS, under ambient curing conditions is investigated in this
at a slower rate during the initial curing period of 7 to 14 days. experimental work. The effect of varying the aggregate quantity on
After 14 days the rate of development of flexural strength the mechanical properties are also studied. The findings of the
increases. The beams made with FACA70 were found to develop experiment are summarized as follows.
higher flexural strength than FACA77 beams. Thus, flexural
strength of GGBS based geopolymer also depends on the combined  It is feasible to make GGBFS based geopolymer concrete using
quantity of coarse and fine aggregate. sodium silicate as the sole alkali solution. Thus, an eco-
friendly and human safe geopolymer can be made without the
use of concentrated alkali hydroxides.
 Compressive strength as well as flexural strength depends on
3.3. Water absorption
both curing age and the quantity of aggregate in the total vol-
ume of the concrete. Longer curing period leads to higher com-
Water absorption value of concrete is indirectly used as the
pressive and flexural strength. However, increasing the quantity
measure for durability of the material under consideration [18].
of aggregate results in decreased compressive and flexural
This is due to the fact that, porous concrete is more vulnerable to
strength.
the penetration of water, chlorides and CO2 from the atmosphere,
 GGBFS based geopolymer concrete of sufficient strength can be
which can lead to the corrosion of the reinforcement and eventu-
produced using ambient curing method.
ally failure of the structural member. Therefore, the measured
water absorption values of FACA70, FACA77 and control sample
is presented in Fig. 6. It shows that as the age of the FACA70, CRediT authorship contribution statement
FACA77 and control increases, the water absorption value
decreases. However, the geopolymer concrete show lower water Prashant G Sawarkar: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writ-
absorption values as compared to the control. The lower water ing – original draft, Investigation, Data curation. Amol Pote: Writ-
absorption values of FACA70 and FACA77 is attributed to the for- ing – review & editing, Supervision. Anant Lal Murmu: Writing –
mation of denser microstructure. review & editing, Visualization.

Fig. 2. Geopolymer production process.

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Prashant G Sawarkar, A. Pote and A. Lal Murmu Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 3. Methodology adopted.

Fig. 6. Water absorption of geopolymer concrete.

Fig. 4. Compressive strength of ground granulated blast furnace slag based Fig. 7. SEM image of GGBS base geopolymer paste.
geopolymer concrete.

Data availability

Data will be made available on request.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-

cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
to influence the work reported in this paper.

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