Parameters that influence silica dissolution in alkaline media

International audienceGeopolymers have been the object of numerous studies because of their low environmental impact. The synthesis of these geomaterials is achieved by the alkaline activation of aluminosilicates. Alkaline activation is typically accomplished by the activation of potassium silicate or sodium silicate. These alkaline silicate solutions are relatively expensive. We thus attempted to create these solutions by the dissolution of potassium hydroxide and silica in water. This study focuses on the various parameters that can influence the dissolution of silica in basic media (pH>13). The samples used were amorphous silica, quartz sand and quartz ground to five different size distributions. The study of the dissolution of siliceous species was performed mainly by infrared spectroscopy by varying several factors. Stirring and solution volume played no significant role. However, the size distribution and crystallinity of silica were observed to significantly affect the kinetics of dissolution and the quantities of siliceous species in solution, which varied greatly according to the quantity of KOH introduced