Effect of using colemanite and basalt fiber on the mechanical properties of metakaolin-based geopolymer mortars

Abstract

In the current studies which focus on the impact of CO2 emissions that released from the cement industry, showed the importanceof finding alternative binders other than cement like geopolymer. This paper presented metakaolin based geopolymer which wasmanufactured by partially replacing metakaolin with colemanite with different percentages (10%, 20%, and 30%), to investigatethe effect of colemanite on the mechanical properties of geopolymer. Then a comparison was carried out between non-fibrousspecimens and basalt fiber reinforced ones to evaluate the improvement in terms of flexural and compressive strength ofmetakaolin-based geopolymer. The results showed that replacing metakaolin with 10% colemanite and adding 1% basalt fiberachieved 28.17% improvement in flexural strength at age 7 days compared to the reference sample.

Keywords

• geopolymer
• metakaolin
• colemanite
• basalt fibers