Geopolymer Cement as the Carbon-Neutral Material in Construction Industry

[Rony]

Geopolymer cement is a building material that is becoming highly popular among cement companies and cement manufacturers. The reason behind the rising popularity of geopolymer cement is that it is much more eco-friendly than traditional cement and concrete.

Let’s explore the basics of geopolymer cement and its advantages in detail...

What is Geopolymer Concrete?​

Geopolymer concrete is made up of aluminate and silicate with a caustic activator. It is an eco-friendly construction material because it is made of common waste materials like fly ash and slag from iron.

It simply means that the waste material from other processes like metal production does not have to be disposed of. Instead, it can be added within the geopolymer concrete. Moreover, it is not necessary to heat up Geopolymer concrete. Hence, it does not produce carbon dioxide. On the other hand, the traditional type of cement requires a high amount of heat and produces significant carbon dioxide.

Benefits of Geopolymer Cement​

Geopolymer cement has many benefits over the traditional type of cement and concrete. Some of them are:

• It lasts significantly longer than normal concrete and requires less maintenance, saving enormous sums of money that would otherwise be spent on fixing concrete infrastructure.
• Conventional concrete can certainly last for tens of years, but geopolymer concrete has the capability of lasting for hundreds of years.
• Geopolymer concrete is more corrosion and fire-resistant. It also has strong compression strength and quickly reaches maximum strength by curing quickly.
• It also has a lower shrinkage rate than normal concrete. Therefore, Geopolymer concrete is suitable for thick and heavily restrained structures.
• Compared to cement concrete, Geopolymer concrete has lower heat of hydration.
• Studies show that Geopolymer concrete provides much better protection to reinforcement steel from corrosion compared to conventional cement concrete.
• Geopolymer concrete has incredibly high acid resistance, especially when it is exposed to sulfuric acids.

Cement manufacturers also realize the significance of geopolymer cement in this sustainability era because more and more customers are looking for eco-friendly alternatives. Geopolymer cement makes a significant difference of about 80% in the production of greenhouse gases over standard cement and concrete.

Composition of Geopolymer Cement​

Cement suppliers and manufacturers use the following components to make geopolymer cement:

• Fly ash is a byproduct of the thermal power plant.
• Fine aggregates and coarse aggregates are also used in the production of normal concrete.
• Ground-granulated blast-furnace slag, which is a byproduct of a steel plant.
• A catalytic liquid system is also required to act as an alkaline activator solution. It combines the solutions of alkali silicates and hydroxides to activate the geopolymeric source materials and form the end-product.

Since these are the byproducts and waste materials of other processes like steel production, the manufacturing of Geopolymer cement is a highly eco-friendly procedure.

Applications of Geopolymer Cement​

The applications of geopolymer cement are similar to the applications of any other type of cement and concrete.

However, it is currently mainly used to build pavements, retaining walls, and water tanks. With the rising popularity of geopolymer cement as an eco-friendly solution, it is highly expected that the material will be used to construct other types of buildings as well.

Conclusion: Can Geopolymer Cement Replace Traditional Cement?​

Manufacturing of traditional cement, known as Portland cement, produces a lot of carbon, so scientists and cement suppliers are looking for reliable and eco-friendly alternatives like Geopolymer cement. However, most of the other types of cement still use Portland cement, where maximum eco-friendliness cannot be achieved.

However, the good thing about Geopolymer concrete is that it does not use any Portland cement. Therefore, the recycled binding element used in this eco-friendly concrete is carbon-neutral.

A major reason why there has been a significant boost in the popularity of Geopolymer cement is that more and more consumers are now looking for eco-friendly building solutions. Moreover, it has now become commercially feasible to produce Geopolymer cement on a large scale and use it to construct various types of pavements and buildings.

Cement companies and suppliers also realize that Geopolymer cement certainly has the potential to become the leading construction material. Yet, there are some serious challenges in this progress due to the global supply chain and lack of waste materials in countries where steel and iron production is low. However, in those regions where fossil fuel and steel production is still operating with maximum efficiency, Geopolymer concrete can certainly be produced to get maximum benefits of eco-friendly construction material.