article · Sustainability
Geopolymer concrete offers a low-carbon alternative to traditional concrete by eliminating cement, relying instead on industrial by-products and alkaline activators. Because conventional activators such as sodium hydroxide generate carbon emissions, minimising their use enhances the sustainability of the material. Laboratory tests evaluated the performance of geopolymer concrete formulated with fly ash and sugarcane bagasse ash. The testing examined sugarcane bagasse ash contents from zero to twenty percent alongside sodium hydroxide concentrations between ten and sixteen molar, maintaining a constant sodium silicate to sodium hydroxide ratio of 2.5. Evaluated through slump, compression, split tensile, and flexure tests, raising the sodium hydroxide concentration from ten to sixteen molar improved 28-day compressive strength by 3.75 to 10.2 percent. Crucially, the material achieved high compressive strength even at the lower concentration of ten molar.
Cement manufacturing contributes heavily to global carbon emissions. Geopolymer concrete substitutes cement with waste by-products, but the chemical activators required also carry an environmental footprint. Demonstrating that lower chemical concentrations still yield high strength helps minimise activator use, facilitating the development of greener construction materials that incorporate agricultural residues like sugarcane bagasse ash alongside industrial fly ash.
This research is applied laboratory work relevant to concrete manufacturers, construction firms, and agricultural processors seeking value for sugarcane bagasse ash. Demonstrating viable strength at lower alkaline activator concentrations helps reduce production costs and embodied carbon for geopolymer concrete products. The findings represent early-stage mix design testing, meaning extensive durability, scale-up, and field-condition trials are necessary before real-world commercial deployment.
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Geopolymer concrete (GPC) is a novel and environmentally friendly type of concrete that eliminates the use of cement, resulting in a significant reduction in carbon emissions and a more sustainable construction material. Alkaline activators are used in GPC to achieve rapid strength development. The most popular alkaline activators are sodium/potassium silicate and sodium/potassium hydroxide, which are known contributors to carbon emissions, hence limiting the advantages of GPC; therefore, reducing the amount of these alkaline activators that contribute to carbon emissions is necessary for developing a more sustainable geopolymer concrete. In this study, the influence of the variation in sodium hydroxide molarities on the performance of fly ash/sugarcane bagasse ash-based-geopolymer concrete was investigated. The different molarities used were 10 M, 12 M, 14 M, and 16 M sodium hydroxide solutions. In addition, the effect of sugarcane bagasse ash content (0%, 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20%) on the fresh and hardened geopolymer concrete properties were examined. The slump test, compression test, split tensile test, and flexure test were conducted on the cast samples. The results of this study showed that raising the concentration of NaOH from 10 M to 16 M while maintaining a sodium silicate to sodium hydroxide ratio of 2.5 resulted in a 3.75–10.2% improvement in compressive strength after 28 days. It is worth noting that, even at a concentration of 10 M, the concrete still achieved high strength.
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DOI: 10.3390/su16072841
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