Microstructural Analysis of Ambient Cured Phosphate Based-Geopolymers with Coal-Ash as Precursor

An alternative for Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) consumption is the production and integration of green cement. In other words, the clinker consumption has to be replaced with new low-carbon binders. A possible solution was introduced by the geopolymerisation technology. However, the alkaline activation of geopolymers offers the possibility of obtaining greener materials with high properties, superior to OPC, but due to the high price of sodium silicate, their industrial use is limited. In the past few years, a new activator has been discovered, namely phosphoric acid. This study approaches the obtaining of coal ash-based geopolymers activated with acid solution cured at room temperature. Accordingly, phosphoric acid, 85% by mass, was diluted in distilled water to obtain a corresponding activation solution for H3PO4/Al2O3 ratio of 1.0 and two types of geopolymers were ambient cured (22°C ±2°C). Moreover, to evaluate the geopolymerisation potential of this system (coal ash - phosphoric acid), SEM and EDS analysis was performed to investigate their morphologic characteristics.