Properties of Alkali-activated Lightweight Concrete


Top S., Altıner M., Vapur H.

in: Handbook of advances in Alkali-activated Concrete, Fernando Pacheco-Torgal,Prinya Chindaprasirt,Togay Ozbakkaloglu, Editor, Elsevier Science, Oxford/Amsterdam , Oxford, pp.1-10, 2022

  • Publication Type: Book Chapter / Chapter Research Book
  • Publication Date: 2022
  • Publisher: Elsevier Science, Oxford/Amsterdam 
  • City: Oxford
  • Page Numbers: pp.1-10
  • Editors: Fernando Pacheco-Torgal,Prinya Chindaprasirt,Togay Ozbakkaloglu, Editor
  • Çukurova University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

The production of alkali-activated concrete, which has attracted great attention as an alternative to classical Portland cemented concrete, has become prominent as an environmentally friendly process since 1970s not only because of the utilization of waste materials but also lower greenhouse gas emissions. In the production of 1 ton cement, approximately 1 ton of CO2 is released into the air and in this respect, cement production takes the 3rd place on a global scale in terms of both greenhouse gas emission and energy consumption (Mohseni et al., 2019). In addition to higher strength (Lin et al., 2020; Mehta et al., 2020), better resistance to fire (Carabba et al., 2019, Sarıdemir and Çelikten, 2020), noise (Mastali et al., 2018), acids (Gu et al., 2019) and salts (Aguirre-Guerrero et al., 2021) make alkali-activated concrete production a more favorite choice. The reactions of solid precursors with alkali activator solutions form 2 different 3-dimensional binder gel systems that allow the formation of alkali activated concretes: (1) C-A-S-H rich in Ca and Si and (2) N-A-S-H rich in Al and Si. Aluminasilicate and calcium aluminasilicate precursors are mainly industrial by-products such as ground granulated blast furnace slags (GGBFS) and fly ashes (FA). Metakaolin (MK) is also a widely used precursor. Alkali-activated concretes, which can be obtained in low density and lighter weight depending on the source material, turn into a more promising building material in lightweight concrete production by using lightweight aggregates.