Metakaolin bottom ash blend geopolymer mortar – A feasibility study

• Combination of Bottom Ash and Metakaolin were used to prepare the geopolymer Mortar.
• Liquid to Solid ratio was ranged from 0.48 to 0.54 with incremental of 0.02.
• Results showed that Liquid to Solid ratio 0.5 exhibits effective compressive strength in mortar.

This paper presents an experimental study on the effective usage of bottom ash (BA) and metakaolin (MK) in geopolymer mortar. Sodium based alkaline activators were used for different mix proportions of bottom ash and metakaolin. Bottom ash was replaced with metakaolin from 0 to 100% at an interval of 25%. Liquid to solid ratio ranged from 0.48 to 0.54 with an increment of 0.02. River sand is used as fine aggregate. The ratio of sodium silicate to sodium hydroxide was kept as 2. Ambient curing mode was used to cure mortar instead of heat curing mode. The test results indicated that the mix with equal proportion of BA and MK with liquid/binder ratio of 0.50 yielded higher compressive strength.