Effects of Curing Time to Engineering Properties of Alkaline Activated Materials Synthesized from Thu Duc Water Plant Waste Sludge, Fly Ash, and Geopolymer Aggregate

Abstract

Alkaline activated materials (AAM) are products of the reactions among activity oxides in high alkaline condition. AAM has many outstanding properties compared to other groups of similar materials. They are applied in many different fields such as construction materials, thermal insulation materials, refractory materials, catalytic materials, and adsorbents in environmental treatment. More importantly, AAMs are fabricated from raw materials of industrial solid waste such as fly ash, bottom ash, rice husk ash, red sludge, water plant waste sludge, blast furnace slag, and others. There are different synthesis and curing methods used to produce AAM. This study used the waste sludge of Thu Duc water plant mixed with fly ash, sand, geopolymer aggregate in alkaline solution prepared from water glass solution and NaOH to fabricate AAM. AAM products were then tested for engineering properties known as compressive strength, volumetric weight, water absorption, pH value, water content, and softening coefficient during various curing times of 1, 3, 7, 28, and 90 days.