Mechanical properties and compositional heterogeneities of fresh geopolymer pastes

Abstract This work explains the elastic properties of the reactive suspensions of metakaolin in sodium silicate solutions immediately after mixing. The flow properties of the interstitial fluid were obtained by mimicking it with synthetic aluminosilicate gels of different Si/Al molar ratios. By comparing these results with the rheological properties of fresh geopolymer pastes and with the ones of unreactive suspensions, we showed that the early age mechanical properties of geopolymer mixes cannot be explained by the colloidal interactions between metakaolin grains but rather by the formation of a gel with a molar ratio Si/Al