Use of Waste Glass to Manufacture Alkali-Activated Materials—An Overview

Alkali-activated materials (AAMs) are considered to be a new class of binders after lime and the conventionally used portland cement. The advantage of alkali-activated materials is that they can be made from a variety of industrial by-products or waste materials. Many of these industrial waste materials or by-products have not been fully explored. One among them is glass waste. On the other hand, glass is one such non-bio-degradable material which is being used in many forms in our day-to-day life. It has a very less life span and its waste is either being piled up or being dumped as landfills. Hence, waste glass can be considered to manufacture alkali-activated materials since waste glass is supposed to have the potential to be used as a precursor material due to the presence of amorphous silica. However, limited research data is available on the use of waste glass as precursor material to manufacture alkali-activated materials. On the other hand, the main drawback of AAMs is the use of high alkaline liquid to manufacture AAMs. Hence, this paper aims in providing a better understanding on the feasibility of using waste glass to manufacture alkali-activated materials.