Potential of using granite waste as raw material for geopolymer synthesis

The main objective of this work was to investigate the potential of using granite waste (GW) as raw material for geopolymer synthesis. The disposal of GW might cause many serious environmental issues. Due to the low reactivity of this aluminosilicate material in its natural state, GW was activated through alkali fusion with different amounts of sodium hydroxide. Fused materials obtained were then used to synthesize geopolymers at room temperature using sodium silicate as activator. The products were characterized using compressive strength, water resistance, XRD, IR spectroscopy and SEM/EDS analyzes. The results showed that the reactivity of GW is improved by alkali fusion method. The amount of reactive phase significantly increases with the amount of Na2O during the pre-activation process. Compressive strength results of geopolymer mortars are varying between 6.25 and 40.5 MPa depending on the amount of Na2O used during the alkali fusion process.