TAFTAN POZZOLAN-BASED GEOPOLYMER CEMENT

In recent years, many research works have been done to investigate the possibility of utilizing a broad range of materials as raw materials in the production of geopolymer cements. the use of artificial pozzolans or aluminosilicate-type industrial waste materials such as granulated blast-furnace slag and fly ash has been reported in many research works. natural pozzolans are also aluminosilicate-type materials which can be activated with solutions of naoh and na2sios. using a pumice-type natural pozzolan from taftan mountain located at the south east of iran and different alkali-activators based on combinations ofna2sio3 and naoh, a number of natural-pozzolan-based geopolymer cement systems were designed and prepared. final setting time, workability, and 28-day compressive strength of the systems were studied. the results obtained reveal that taftan pozzolan can be activated using a proportioned mixture of na2sio3 and naoh resulting in the formation of a geopolymer cement system exhibiting suitable workability and relatively high 28-day compressive strengths up to 63 mpa.