Mechanical and fracture performance of cellulose fibers based geopolymeric composite incorporating wastes

Geopolymers drew a lot of attention among scientific communities in the last decades for being a cement-like material, sustainable and eco-friendly. Its mechanical properties are well comparable to those of Portland cement and it has been demonstrated that these materials are so chemically stable that they can yield almost infinite durability compared to concrete [1]. While showing these attractive features, geopolymer nonetheless involves high cost due to refined primary materials utilization and low resistance to crack propagation (fracture toughness). On one hand, cost of production can be sensitively reduced by using wastes as source materials, among all fly-ash, a power plant by-product, and borosilicate glass, recycled glass from pharmaceutical vials. On the other, fracture toughness can be improved by producing composites from geopolymeric matrix. Please download the file below for full content