What Is a geopolymer?
Geopolymer is a structurally disordered aluminosilicate material with high mechanical strength that stands as an environmentally friendly future alternative to traditional cementitious materials. Cement is the most consumed man-made material worldwide produced by an energy-intensive process. Unfortunately, it is also responsible for high CO2 emissions raising environmental concerns. Geopolymers are disordered alkali-aluminosilicate materials synthesized at fairly mild conditions, requiring less energy and resulting in reduced CO2 emissions. In addition to construction, geopolymers have application areas including waste encapsulation and heat-resistant ceramics. Our focus is obtaining structure-property relations in these interesting systems in order to be able to design geopolymers with desired properties.
