Influence of clay minerals and associated minerals in alkali activation of soils

Alastair Marsh, Andrew Heath, Pascaline Patureau, Mark Evernden, Pete Walker

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

29 Citations (SciVal)
191 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Alkali activation is promising for low environmental impact soil stabilisation. Given soils’ complexity, there is a lack of fundamental understanding of how the different components in soil influence their alkali activation behaviour. A novel method was developed to compare three natural soils with synthetic versions. Precursors and products were characterised by XRD, SEM, TGA and FTIR to explore the soils’ alkali activation phase formation behaviour. It is shown that only the clay minerals will determine phase formation, whereas most associated minerals had negligible influence. The trade-off between Na:Al and NaOH concentration in mix design means lower plasticity soils are more suitable.
Original languageEnglish
Article number116816
Pages (from-to)1-16
Number of pages16
JournalConstruction and Building Materials
Volume229
Early online date10 Sept 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 30 Dec 2019

Keywords

  • Alkali activation
  • Geopolymer
  • Zeolite
  • Soil
  • Earth
  • Stabilisation
  • Clay minerals
  • Associated minerals

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Civil and Structural Engineering
  • Inorganic Chemistry

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