The effect of temperature on the geopolymerization process of a metakaolin-based geopolymer

This paper describes the effect of different curing temperatures on the geopolymerization process, physical, mechanical and optical properties of a metakaolin-based geopolymer activated by alkali. The influence of different curing temperatures (within the range 30 to 90 °C) was studied systematically by means of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), SEM, UV/Vis Spectrophotometry, Leaching analysis and Brunauer–Emmet–Teller method (BET). The results showed the existence of an optimum temperature at which the geopolymer presents the best physical and mechanical properties. The geopolymers cured at 30 and 90 °C presented high porosity, and were translucent to the Visible light, which makes possible to tailor this inorganic polymers for optical and photocatalytic applications.