An Investigative Preparation of Unfired Bricks from Clay and Fine Sand in the Presence of Sodium Hydroxide as an Activator through Geo-polymerization

Hithesh Prabhakara  Shetty; Rakshith Shetty; Shishir Golikoppa  Srinivasa; Sumanth Achira  Vishwanath; Subrahmanya Ramachandra  Sharma; Sanjay Sukumar Saralaya

doi:10.47540/ijias.v4i3.1561

Authors

Hithesh Prabhakara Shetty Department of Civil Engineering, Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Institute of Technology, India
Rakshith Shetty Department of Civil Engineering, Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Institute of Technology, India
Shishir Golikoppa Srinivasa Department of Civil Engineering, Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Institute of Technology, India
Sumanth Achira Vishwanath Department of Civil Engineering, Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Institute of Technology, India
Subrahmanya Ramachandra Sharma Department of Civil Engineering, Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Institute of Technology, India
Sanjay Sukumar Saralaya Department of Chemistry, Shri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Institute of Technology, India

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47540/ijias.v4i3.1561

Keywords:

Activators, Clay Bricks, Compressive Strength Geo-polymerization, Sodium Hydroxide Solution, Water Absorption

Abstract

The present work was focused on an alternative method for the preparation of clay bricks by the mediation of sodium hydroxide solution as an efficient activator. The traditional brick preparation requires a firing process, but the present innovation avoids it by the use of commercially viable alkali as an activator. Various brick specimens were prepared by the addition of sodium hydroxide solution having different molarities to clay samples. This was done to optimize the process and contribute to process cost reduction. The blends obtained were molded as per the standard brick dimension (19X9X9 cm) and exposed to the ambient atmosphere in a well-ventilated room for curing (14-28 days). The clay samples and the brick specimens were subjected to some critical qualitative tests. Based on the results it was established that increasing the alkali addition to clay had gradually reduced the brick quality. Moreover, the inclusion of fine sand in the blend enhanced the brick quality. In this work, we emphasized optimizing the alkali input, the impact of reduced curing duration, avoiding brick firing, and the fine sand impact on the brick quality.

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