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Effect of alkali activators on diffusivity of metakaolin-based geopolymers

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Abstract

A basic investigation into whether a geopolymer can be utilized as a part of an artificial barrier during radioactive waste disposal was conducted in this study. Geopolymers are comprised primarily alumina and silica, and they exhibit negligible leaching owing to the absence of calcium. Studies on geopolymers are limited compared to those on other cementitious materials because the physical characteristics of geopolymers vary with the production conditions. In this work, metakaolin based geopolymers were prepared, and their diffusion performance was analyzed. The results indicate that the diffusivity of cesium in a geopolymer is affected by the type of alkali activator. Sodium-activated geopolymers had higher cesium adsorption capacity than potassium-activated geopolymers. The cesium adsorption capacity also had a significant effect on the diffusivity of cesium in the geopolymers. It was shown that, in addition to the pore structure and surface area, the mobility of water affects the diffusion performance of the geopolymer.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). A part of this work was conducted at the Joint-use Facilities: Laboratory of Nano-Micro Material Analysis, Hokkaido University, supported by the "Nanotechnology Platform” program of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan. We express our gratitude to these sources.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Kita 13 Nishi 8, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 0608628, Japan

    Kiyofumi Kurumisawa

  2. Graduated School of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Kita 13 Nishi 8, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 0608628, Japan

    Hiroaki Omatu

  3. Graduated School of Engineering, Hokkaido University, Kita 13 Nishi 8, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 0608628, Japan

    Yuta Yamashina

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  1. Kiyofumi Kurumisawa
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Kiyofumi Kurumisawa

Supervision, Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing- Original draft preparation, Writing- Editing. Hiroaki Ohmatsu: Methodology. Yuta Yamashina

Methodology.

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Correspondence to Kiyofumi Kurumisawa.

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Kurumisawa, K., Omatu, H. & Yamashina, Y. Effect of alkali activators on diffusivity of metakaolin-based geopolymers. Mater Struct 54, 169 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-021-01758-y

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