Development of Geopolymer from Pond Ash-Thermal Power Plant Waste

3Pond Ash (PA)-Based Geopolymer Cementitious Materials

Muktikanta Panigrahi¹*, Ratan Indu Ganguly² and Radha Raman Dash³

¹PG Department of Materials Science, Maharaja Sriram Chandra Bhanja Deo University, Keonjhar Campus, Odisha, India

²Department of Metallurgical Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Raurkela, Odisha, India

³CSIR-National Metallurgical Laboratory, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, India

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is the use of pond ash as raw material in geopolymer cements. The process parameters of the study were defined after review of the literature. The chemicals needed for geopolymerization were collected; and the pond ash was procured from Damanjodi, Odisha (M/S NALCO). The pond ash materials were dried in the open air (1 day) followed by drying in an oven at 120 °C for 12 h. They were classified by sieve analysis and mixed in certain proportions, as descried in the study. They were subsequently mixed manually as well as mechanically, and were then dried in an oven for a certain length of time and temperature. The results showed that optimum conditions were obtained by single factor experiments, i.e., 240 meshes, 70 °C, 24 h, 12 g sodium silicate (SS), 3 g sodium hydroxide (SH), 1–2 ml Sika (water-soluble plasticizer). The maximum strength properties achieved was 19 MPa. Thus, these materials were equivalent to 20 M grade of cement and can reduce the issues associated with Portland cement (PC).

Keywords: Thermal power plant waste, pond ash, geopolymer, ...