Development of Maize Stalk Cellulose Fiber Reinforced Calcined Kaolinite Clay Geopolymer Composite

In recent years the popularity of ecological and renewable materials has grown. Aware of the availability of local resources and economic grounds, the attention is paid to the development geopolymer composite. Geopolymers are inorganic polymers that are formed by the polymerization reaction of silico-aluminate and silico-oxide. The aim of the research was to develop single maize stalk cellulose fiber reinforced calcined kaolinte caly based geopolymer composite. Kaolinite clay was characterized for its chemical composition from two different sites located in Ethiopia to use as precursor material. In addition to that, single maize stalk fiber was extracted from the maize stalk local variety by using a retting process, sodium hydroxide purity 98 % used for chemical treatment of the fiber for 30 minutes and its tensile strength 1184 Mpa and young modulus 16 Gpa were determined based on AST M D3822 to use as reinforcement. Sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate in appropriate ratio were used as an alkaline activator. Therefore,  the geopolymer composite developed from chemical treated short single maize stalk cellulose fiber and calcined kaolinite clay based geopolymer matrix activated by sodium water glass.  Geopolymer composites reinforced with 0 weight%, 0.1 weight%, 0.2 weight%, 0.6 weight%, and 1 weight% maize stalk single cellulose were prepared and tested for compression strength according to AST M C 1424. Measured compression strength ranged from 16 Mpa up to 27 Mpa. The result shows that the appropriate addition of single maize stalk cellulose  fibers can improve the Compression strength of a calcined kaolinite based geopolyme