Preparation and Characterization of Ceramic Waste-Based Geopolymer Ceramic Composites for Substrate Culture Application

Abstract

The present study focuses on the new application of geopolymer ceramic composites as substrate cultures, resulting from the geopolymer properties being similar to those of the substrate cultures such as water absorption, non-biodegradation, high porosity, and light weight. The geopolymers were synthesized from ceramic wastes and metakaolin using the geopolymerization method via a reaction with an alkaline solution. To compare usefulness for substrate culture applications, the porosity of different samples was varied. Moreover, the properties of all samples were investigated using an additional method of verification. The chemical characteristics were evaluated by FT-IR spectroscopy. The microstructures, pore sizes, pore distributions and surface areas of the pores were examined with image analysis using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The densities were determined using the Archimedes’ method. The porosity and water absorption were also measured. The mechanical properties were investigated by using a compression testing machine.

Synergistic effect of animal oil or butter and hydrogen peroxide on physical and mechanical properties of porous alumino-siliceous materials

“…Furthermore, the amount of open pores increased as amounts of surfactant increased. As shown in previous works, the morphology of geopolymer foam formed when H 2 O 2 was used as a foaming agent normally gave large sphere-shaped pores [35]. That is due to H 2 O 2 reacting with alkaline solutions to generate gas, which causes a porous microstructure in the samples [36,37] because H 2 O 2 decomposes to H 2 O and O 2 according to the following equations [36]:…”