The effect of industrial waste used as binder and aggregate on the properties of geopolymer mortars

This thesis presents the properties of geopolymer materials, which not only reduces the CO2 emissions by replace Portland cement, but also enables the industrial waste to be recycled to produce a green and sustainable construction material. In the research, blast furnace slag, silica fume and alkali activators (sodium silicate and sodium hydroxide) were used as basic components of the geopolymer. More than 300 samples were prepared using different mix designs and a number of series of experiments were carried out to determine the physical, mechanical and durability properties of these samples in order to examine the effects of factors such as curing conditions, binder type and waste metal contents. It has been determined how waste characteristics contribute to the properties of mortars and microstructural investigations have been investigated. Researches in recent years have focused on improving electromagnetic shielding provided by cement materials due to the widespread use of wireless technologies and electronic devices. Geopolymer mortar production is provided by waste materials which electromagnetic shielding properties have not been investigated yet. In addition, all geopolymer mortar samples produced have been optimized by subjecting a number of performance constraints.