The effect of temperature on the geopolymerization process of a metakaolin-based geopolymer

This paper describes the effect of different curing temperatures on the geopolymerization process, physical, mechanical and optical properties of a metakaolin-based geopolymer activated by alkali. The influence of different curing temperatures (within the range 30 to 90 °C) was studied systematically by means of differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), SEM, UV/Vis Spectrophotometry, Leaching analysis and Brunauer-Emmet-Teller method (BET). The results showed the existence of an optimum temperature at which the geopolymer presents the best physical and mechanical properties. The geopolymers cured at 30 and 90 °C presented high porosity, and were translucent to the Visible light, which makes possible to tailor this inorganic polymers for optical and photocatalytic applications. © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.