A REVIEW ON GEOPOLYMER CONCRETE WITH COPPER SLAG AS A PARTIAL

REPLACEMENT FOR FINE AGGREGATE

1
K.Mahendran,
2
N.Arunachelam
1
Associate professor,
2
Research Scholar, Rural Technology Centre, Gandhigram Rural Institute,
Gandhigram.
Mahendran_gri@rediffmail.com,arunachelam.gri@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
The use of industrial wastes in concrete production is environment friendly because of its
reduction in consumption of the natural resources like sand and course aggregate and also reduces the
Co
2
emission during the cement manufacturing process. Geopolymer an innovative binder material
which was invented by Davidovits in 1978 can be synthesized from alkali activation of materials like
Fly ash, Rice Husk ash which are rich in Silicon and Aluminium. This paper presents the future study
of utilizing the copper slag as partial replacement for fine aggregates. Geopolymer concrete batches
will be made with varying the percentage of copper slag as partial replacement for fine aggregate
with varying molarity of sodium hydroxide solution and properties such as compressive strength ,
Flexural strength, Splitting Tensile strength, and durability characteristics will be studied for this
concrete cured under ambient condition and also in elevated temperatures.
INTRODUCTION
Cement is the major constituents of
the concrete. The worlds yearly production of
cement is about 1.6 billion tons accounts for
about 7% of global loading of carbon dioxide
in to atmosphere. Ordinary Cement concrete
typically contains 12% of cement and 80% of
aggregates by mass, globally concrete making
consumes sand, gravel and crushed rock.
Utilizing these natural resources causes several
environmental impacts like depletion of
Ground water, loosing water retaining sand
strata, affecting the bank side vegetation and
aquatic life are few impacts due to sand
mining in river bed.in order to overcome the
above problem Geopolymer which was
developed by Davidovits, that can be used as a
binder which is alternate to the cement. The
binder is produced by the reaction of an
alkaline liquid with a source material that is
rich in silica and alumina. Wide range of
research related to geoplymers, with some
reporting on chemical composition aspects or
reaction process and few of them related to
mechanical properties and durability. Fly Ash
can be used as a binder in Geopolymer which
has a high amount of silica and alumina which
is solid waste generated in thermal power
plants. Hence Fly ash based geoplymers
concrete is a good alternative to ordinary
Portland cement concrete.
Copper slag is an industrial by-product
material produced from the process of
manufacturing copper. It has been estimated
that for manufacturing 1 tonne of copper an
amount of 1.5 tonnes of copper slag is
produced. Copper slag possesses mechanical
and chemical characteristics that qualify the
material that can be used geopolymeric
concrete as partial replacement/substitute for
the fine aggregate. Also copper slag contains
Al
2
o
3
, SiO
2
and Fe
2
O
3
which may react with
the alkaline solution.
Literature Review
The chemical composition of the
Geopolymer resembles similar to the natural
zeolite mineral and amorphous in
microstructure[1], Geopolymer are synthesised
by polymerization process involves a
substantially fast chemical reaction under
alkaline condition on Si-Al minerals that
results in a three dimensional polymeric chain
and ring structure consisting of Si-O-Al-O
bonds as follows
Mn [-(SiO2) z-AlO2] n. wH2O
Where M = the alkaline element or cation such
as potassium, sodium or calcium; the symbol
indicates the presence of a bond, n is the
degree of polycondensation or polymerisation;
z is 1,2,3, or higher.[2], Unlike ordinary
Portland cement, Geopolymer do not form
calcium silicate- hydrates(CSHs) gel for
matrix formation and strength, these
Geopolymer are sometime referred to as alkali
activated alumina silicate binders[4]. Low-
calcium fly ash-based Geopolymer concrete
has excellent compressive strength, suffers
very little drying shrinkage and low creep,
excellent resistance to sulphate attack, and
good acid resistance [3].

The concentration of
NaOH greatly influence strength of
Geopolymer concrete[18] The Geopolymer
concrete beam exhibit increased flexural
strength, the deflection at different stages
including service load and peak load stage are
higher for Geopolymer concrete
beams[5].Mixing of time of the Geopolymer
concrete influence strength and workability of
the Geopolymer concrete. Longer mixing time
yielded lower sump value and higher
compressive strength and higher density of
concrete[13]. The compressive strength of
Geopolymer increases with increase in
duration of curing time and also the
temperature of the oven curing[6], the effect of
treatment time on the compressive strength of
Geopolymeric pastes can not be generalised
for 5 and 6 hours , however it seems that the
extremely higher durations such as 21 hours
are very effective for the development of
compressive strength[7], The optimum mix
ratio for the Geopolymer is 1:1.5:3.3 with a
solution (NaoH & Na
2
SiO
3
combined together)
to fly ash ratio of 0.35 [12], Addition of silicia
fume up to 7% greatly enhances the
geopolymerization process, while further
increase of silica fume leads to decrease in the
mechanical characteristics[14] the modulus of
elasticity of the fly ash based Geopolymer
concrete is observed as on par strength when
compared to conventional concrete[16],the
flextural capacity of the beams is influenced
by the concrete compressive strength and the
tensile reinforcement ratio[17]. also apart from
curing temperature and time few other
parameters also influence the strength of the
Geoploymer concrete such as alkaline liquid to
Fly Ash ratio, molarity of Na OH, ratio
between Sodium silicate and sodium
hydroxide.
On the other hand utilization of copper
slag in cement concrete an alternative for the
partial natural sand Copper Slag an industrial
by product which is produced during the
manufacturing of copper. For each ton of
copper slag manufacture it generates 2.5
tonnes of copper slag. In India 8 lakh tons of
copper slag is generated every year, it has been
widely used for abrasive tools, roof granules,
cutting tools, abrasive, tiles, glass, road base
construction, rail road ballast and cement and
concrete industries [8]. Addition of copper
slag increases the density thereby the self-
weight of the concrete

[9]. Compressive
strength of the cement concrete increased by
55% at 40% replacement of the fine aggregate
by copper slag and upto 75% concrete gain
more strength than control mix concrete
strength [10]. Marginal increase in the flexural
strength of cement concrete specimen with
40% replacement of copper slag for sand [11].
RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE
Cement concrete place an vital role in the
construction industry and they are the higher
utilizes of the natural resources. In terms of
reducing the utilization of natural resources
and global warming, Geopolymer concrete
with copper slag as replacement for aggregates
could reduce the CO
2
emission to the
atmosphere during the manufacturing process
and utilization of copper slag in Geopolymer
concrete may reduce the environment
problems caused by the sand mining.
MATERIALS
The materials needed to manufacture
the fly ash based Geopolymer concrete are fly
ash, alkaline solution and aggregates.
Fly ash to be used in making the Geopolymer
concrete is obtained from the Neyveli Thermal
Power Station and the chemical composition is
shown in the table 1.
Alkaline liquid are also required to activate the
fly ash in the geopolymerisation process. The
most common alkali activator used is
combination of sodium silicate (Na
2
Sio
2
) and
sodium hydroxide will be used in making of
Geopolymer concrete. The role of alkaline
solution is to dissolve the reactive portion of
source material Si and Al present in fly ash
and provide a high alkaline liquid medium for
condensation polymerisation reaction [15]
Aggergates
Fine aggregate locally available river sand
having a specific gravity of 2.64 and
confirming to Zone III will be used as a fine
aggregate
Coarse aggregate will be a crushed granite
metal having a specific gravity of 2.70,
passing through 20 mm and retained in 4.75
mm and having a water absorption of 0.89%.
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