Characterization of chemosynthetic H3PO4–Al2O3–2SiO2 geopolymers

Pure chemosynthetic Al2O3–2SiO2 powders fabricated by a sol–gel method exhibit high phosphoric acid-activated properties and high compressive strengths. The phosphoric acid-activated properties could be characterized by compressive strength. The phase structure evolution of synthetic powders and the resulting geopolymers were investigated by DTA-TG, XRD, FTIR and MAS NMR analysis. These results show that the phosphoric acid-activation region of the synthetic powders was in the range of 200–800 °C, which was much lower than the temperature at which kaolinite was converted into metakaolinite. 31P MAS NMR analysis revealed that [PO4] tetrahedra were part of the geopolymer structure.