Effect of Curing Time and Sintering to the Properties of Geopolymer Mortars

Abstract

In this study, the geopolymer mortars were synthesized with fly ash (FA) and silica powder as aluminosilicate sources and a combination of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution, sodium silicate (Na2SiO3) solution and distilled water as alkaline activator. Commercial sago was used as a pore former in the mortars. The percentage of sago used were 10, 20 and 30 wt% of FA. The amount of added water used in each mixture was 5% by weight of FA, NaOH solution and Na2SiO3 solution. The formed geopolymer mortars were cured for 1, 3 and 7 days and sintered at 1000 °C. X-ray fluoresence (XRF) shown that FA contains higher amount of silica (SiO2) and alumina (Al2O3) which is important as aluminosilicate sources. The properties of the geopolymer mortars before and after sintered at 1000 °C have been investigated. The results show that geopolymer mortars with 10% of sago content with curing time of 7 days and sintered at 1000 °C give the highest compressive strength of 13.5 MPa.