Effect of molarity over the slag based geopolymer brick under ambient curing

Bricks have been used for building innumerable structures over many hundreds of years because of their durability. Brick industry consumes about 24 million tonnes of coal per year which is about 8% of the total coal consumption of India. Coal is used to burn the bricks and at a global scale bricks contribute to air pollution and climate change. Bricks are burnt at high temperature in kilns leaving bottoms ash as residue and greenhouse gases as air pollutants which leads to considerable health problems, especially related to respiratory health. Also there are environmental problems caused due to the manufacture of cement for plastering and bonding purposes in brick masonry. The main objective of this work is to investigate the effect of molarity over the Ground Granulated Blast furnace Slag (GGBS) based geopolymer concrete to address the environmental problems caused due to the conventional bricks. GGBS, flyash, NaOH, Na2SiO3 and M-sand are used to produce the Geopolymer brick. The molarity of the sodium hydroxide solution was varies as 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16M. The performance of the brick was assessed in terms of Dimensions Tolerance, Compressive Strength, Water Absorption and Efflorescence in accordance with the IS 1077 and IS 13757. The results portray that the Geopolymer bricks exhibit competent properties and hence paves way for the better scope of production of Geopolymer interlocking brick using industrial waste. This work also adds to reduce the strain over the environment and move towards the synthesis of sustainable building materials.