Preparation of Geopolymer Concrete Using Egyptian Kaolin Clay and The Study of Its Environmental Effects and Economic Cost
Preparation of Geopolymer Concrete Using Egyptian Kaolin Clay and The Study of Its Environmental Effects and Economic Cost
Preparation of Geopolymer Concrete Using Egyptian Kaolin Clay and The Study of Its Environmental Effects and Economic Cost
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-020-01811-4
ORIGINAL PAPER
Received: 26 March 2019 / Accepted: 9 January 2020 / Published online: 19 January 2020
© Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract
Concrete is the basic building material in the world, and cement is the main material used in the production of concrete.
However, there is an urgent need to reduce the consumption of cement, where cement production leads to 5–8% of global
emissions of carbon dioxide. Geopolymer concrete is an innovative building material produced by alkaline activation of
pozzolanic materials such as fly ash, granulated blast furnace slag, and kaolin clay. Geopolymers are widely used in the pro-
duction of geopolymer concrete due to their ability to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and reduce high energy consumption.
During the present study, the environmental impact of two strength grades (30 MPa and 40 MPa) of metakaolin geopolymer
concrete (GPC) was evaluated to study its applicability in the construction sector. The kaolin clay extracted from the Aswan
quarries was activated by a mixture of sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate solution. To introduce geopolymer concrete in
the Egyptian industry sector, its environmental performance, together with its technical performance, should be competitive
to the cement concrete used mainly for the time being. The cost of this new concrete system should also be evaluated. The
environmental impact of GPC was evaluated and compared with cement concrete using life cycle assessment analysis and
IMPACT 2002+ methodology. The cost of production was calculated for 1 m3 of geopolymer concrete and conventional
cement concrete. Metakaolin geopolymer concrete achieved a high compressive strength of ~ 56 MPa, splitting tensile
strength of 24 MPa, and modulus of elasticity of 8.5 MPa. The corrosion inhibition of metakaolin geopolymer concrete
was ~ 80% better than that of conventional cement concrete. Geopolymer concrete achieved a reduction in global warming
potential by 61% and improved the human health category by 9.4%. However, due to the heavy burdens of sodium silicate,
the geopolymer concrete negatively affected the quality of the ecosystem by 68% and showed a slightly higher impact than
cement concrete on the resource damage category for low strength grade of 30 MPa. The high cost of the basic ingredients
of the geopolymer resulted in a high production cost of geopolymer concrete (~ 92 US$) that was three times that of cement
concrete (~ 31 US$). Based on the environmental results, geopolymer concrete based on locally available metakaolin clay
can be applied in the construction sector as a green alternative material for cement concrete.
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670 R. Abbas et al.
Graphic abstract
Keywords Egyptian metakaolin · Geopolymer concrete · LCA · Environmental impacts · Climate change · Economic cost
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Preparation of geopolymer concrete using Egyptian kaolin clay and the study of its environmental… 671
and salts, low shrinkage, and low thermal conductivity and Zaharaki 2007). Mclellan et al. (2011) estimated the
(Duxson et al. 2007a), resulting in a wide range of potential improvement in greenhouse gas emissions of geopolymer
applications such as low-CO2-producing cement, fire- and concrete over cement concrete by 44–64%. Other studies
corrosion-resistant coatings, porous insulators, and waste- showed an improvement in carbon dioxide emissions by 16%
water treatment (Luukkonen et al. 2016). (Petrillo et al., 2016) and 40% (Nguyen et al. 2018) com-
In the last decades, geopolymer concrete provides tre- pared to 100% OPC.
mendous potential as a building material due to its excellent The main environmental burdens within the geopoly-
durability compared to cement concrete. Lately, geopolymer mer concrete life cycle have been associated with the use
based on blast furnace slag and fly ash has been used in of alkali activators (Teh et al. 2017). Previous studies have
Queensland’s Global Change Institute (GCI) and the Bris- shown the production of sodium hydroxide is the most rel-
bane West Well camp airport (BWWA) in Australia, saving evant process regarding the environmental performance of
more than 6600 t of carbon emissions. However, for a bet- geopolymer concrete, as it is a main raw material in the
ter acceptance of geopolymer concrete among infrastruc- production of sodium silicate as well (Salas et al. 2018).
ture owners, government decision makers, and society as a In addition, the source of sodium hydroxide greatly affects
whole, certain constraints have to be overcome such as the the overall environmental impacts, due to both, the energy
absence of code standards and regulations that hinder the mix and the type of sodium chloride used for its produc-
implementation of its various applications (Das et al. 2018). tion. However, in order to critically assess the geopolymer
To date, geopolymers have not been produced in Egypt system, concerns other than CO2 emissions should be taken
despite their extreme importance and the availability of raw into consideration (Weil et al. 2009).
materials for their production. It is, therefore, time to use Contrary to previous findings, Habert et al. (2011)
geopolymer concrete in the Egyptian construction sector, reported higher impacts of geopolymer concrete concern-
and the potential environmental impact of its production ing human toxicity, ozone layer depletion, and abiotic deple-
should be assessed. tion due to the use of sodium silicate solution. Furthermore,
Egypt has a large reservoir of sedimentary kaolin deposits according to the S iO2/Al2O3 ratio, the global warming
located in three main areas, namely Aswan, Red Sea, and potential (GWP) of the metakaolin geopolymer could be
Sinai (Baioumy et al. 2011). Previous studies have inves- either lower or higher than standard cement (Heath et al.
tigated the textural, mineralogical, and geochemical com- 2014). Davidovits (2015) proved that the results of Habert
positions of the Egyptian Kaolin deposits (Baioumy et al. et al. (2011) were improper because the calculated data were
2012; Baioumy 2014). Aswan kaolin deposits are located based on methodological errors.
approximately 105 km southwest of Aswan city at Wadi Novel approaches have emerged to reduce the poten-
Kalabsha area. Kalabsha deposit is one of the major kao- tial of global warming such as biochar, which has found
lin resources in Egypt, which is approximately 17 million its ways into various applications (Zhu et al. 2017), where
metric tons and is mainly used for domestic uses such as it can be used as a significant sink of atmospheric carbon
ceramics, refractories, and white cement (Baioumy et al. dioxide (Lehmann et al. 2006), and reduction of NO3 levels
2011), as well as partial replacement of cement in the (Maroušek et al. 2018). With its lifetime of several centuries,
concrete mixture to improve its durability and mechanical biochar is being widely accepted as a promising method of
properties (Rashwan et al. 2015). Under thermal activation, carbon sequestration (Maroušek et al. 2016). Recently, bio-
kaolin clay transforms into a reactive phase of metakaolin. char is used as an additive in the concrete mixture to improve
When metakaolin is used as an aluminosilicate precursor, the mechanical properties of conventional concrete and as
the resulting geopolymer is purer and can be more easily an optimal solution for the reduction of CO2 in concrete
characterized compared to the geopolymers produced from production (Akhtar and Sarmah 2018).
industrial wastes that contain several hard-to-characterize Toniolo and Boccaccini (2017) showed additional ben-
amorphous phases (Rocha et al. 2018). Fly ash, for example, efit of using materials such as biomass ashes, red mud, and
is not a well-defined material, but it comprises several crys- recycled glass in the production of geopolymer. The high
talline and vitreous phases (Duxson et al. 2005). alkalinity of these materials reduces the required amount of
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a globally recognized alkali activator while the high content of amorphous silica
comprehensive method for analyzing the environmental can be treated to obtain an eco-friendly water glass, thus
impact of materials and products during their life cycle reducing the most expensive materials used during geopol-
from cradle to grave. LCA is regulated by the International ymer synthesis. Agro-industrial wastes such as rice husk
Organization of Standardization ISO 14040: (2006) and ISO ash (RHA) (> 90% silica) can be dissolved into an alkali
14044: (2006). hydroxide solution for use as a silica source in geopolymer
Using LCA, the estimated reduction in carbon dioxide synthesis, yielding similar mechanical properties compared
emissions of geopolymer cement is 20–80% (Komnitsas to the use of commercial waterglass (Passuello et al. 2017).
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672 R. Abbas et al.
Despite the availability of high-quality raw materials Field Emission Gun (FEG-SEM) with EDX attachment on
such as metakaolin in the region, frequent data of metakao- the environmental mode.
lin application are limited to partial replacement of cement Liquid sodium silicate solution (weight ratio of the S
iO2/
(Ibrahim et al. 2018) and in fire resistance and thermal insu- Na2O = 3:1) was provided from Macris Silicates Plant, Alex-
lation applications (Rashad 2017). In addition, no life cycle andria, Egypt. The concentration of the silicate solution
studies have been carried out on these materials to determine was 40% by mass and had a density of 1.46 g/cm3. Sodium
the applicability of metakaolin geopolymer in the construc- hydroxide flakes (99% purity) were provided from El Nasr
tion sector. Pharmaceutical Chemicals Company (ADWIC), Alexandria,
The objective of this work is to study and evaluate the Egypt.
environmental impact of the production geopolymer con-
crete using locally available kaolin clay as a step on the way Methods
to a better understanding of its applicability in the construc-
tion sector in the future. Mechanical properties, such as com- Preparation of alkali‑activated solution
pressive strength, splitting tensile strength, and modulus of
elasticity, in addition to the electrochemical performance in Two alkali-activated solutions with a modulus ratio 2.0
seawater were investigated, and traditional cement concrete (Na2SiO3/NaOH) were prepared by adding sodium hydrox-
was used for comparison. Also, a preliminary cost study ide to sodium silicate solution to obtain S
iO2/Al2O3 (S/A)
was conducted to determine the applicability of geopolymer ratios of 2.7 and 2.8. For each 100 g of metakaolin binder,
concrete in the future. 6.0 g of sodium hydroxide was dissolved in 36.6 g of silicate
solution to obtain an S/A ratio of 2.7, and 7.3 g of sodium
hydroxide was dissolved in 44.4 g of silicate solution to
obtain an S/A ratio of 2.8. The mixtures were left 24 h at
Materials and methods room temperature to cool before use.
Kaolin clay from Kalabsha quarry in Aswan, Egypt, was In the current study, the geopolymerization process was con-
provided from Nourmetec Refractories in Wadi Houf, Cairo, ducted at room temperature to realize a better development
Egypt. Kaolin clay (Fig. 1a) was crushed to particle size of the late compressive strength which represents a prior-
lower than 20 mm and calcined 3 h in a rotary kiln at 850 °C ity in the present work. Under these conditions, the pro-
to get the reactive phase of metakaolin (MK-K). Metakao- gress of the reaction is promoted and denser microstructure
lin particles were ground and sieved to particle size under is obtained. Geopolymer concrete was prepared with two
100 μm, to increase its surface area. The chemical composi- strength grades of 30 MPa (GPC-30) and 40 MPa (GPC-40);
tion of calcined kaolin clay was determined by Axios X-ray the S/A ratio was 2.7 in GPC-30 and 2.8 in GPC-40. The
fluorescence (WD-XRF) sequential spectrometer PANalyti- total content of aggregate in the GPC was 70% by mass, and
cal. The mineralogical composition and thermal behavior the fine aggregate was added as 40% of the total aggregate.
of kaolin clay and metakaolin were identified by X’Pert All solid ingredients of metakaolin, fine aggregate (FA),
Pro PANalytical Powder and DTA-50 thermal analyzer, and coarse aggregate (CA) were dry-mixed for 2–3 min. The
Shimadzu Co. The morphology of calcined kaolin clay was alkali-activated solution was slowly added to the dry con-
examined with scanning electron microscope Quanta 250 crete constituents and mixed mechanically for 5.0 min. Tap
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Preparation of geopolymer concrete using Egyptian kaolin clay and the study of its environmental… 673
water was slowly added during the mixing process, and the lines of quartz. A weak hump is observed in the 2θ range ~ 17°
workability of the concrete mixture was adjusted according to 27°. It reflects weak amorphous structure formed from the
to ASTM C 143 to give a slump value of 12.5 cm (Fig. 1b). dehydroxylated kaolinite phase, and the other clay minerals. A
The concrete mixture was immediately cast into cubic steel dispersion peak of the X-ray amorphous metakaolin was previ-
molds (10 cm * 10 cm * 10 cm), vibrated for 30 s, demolded ously reported in a 2θ range 18° and 25° (Chen et al. 2016) and
after 24 h, and left to harden in air at room temperature of agrees well with the present result. Figure 4 illustrates the DTA
25 °C for up to 1 year. thermogram for kaolin clay and thermally treated metakaolin.
Similarly, cement concrete (CC) was prepared with two The DTA of the kaolin clay shows a weak endothermic peak
strength grades of 30 MPa (CC-30) and 40 MPa (CC-40). below 100 °C, representing the weakly adsorbed water mol-
The composition of both geopolymer concrete and cement ecules removed from the surface of kaolin clay. The endother-
concrete mixtures is given in Table 1. mic peak at 523 °C represents the dehydroxylation of kaolin
clay, where the crystalline structure of kaolin is destroyed and
transformed into the amorphous structure of metakaolin. The
Results and discussion sharp exothermic peak at 995 °C represents the transformation
of the amorphous structure of metakaolin into crystalline spi-
Characterization of kaolin clay nel. The DTA of metakaolin shows a very broad endothermic
peak at 370–840 °C, and this peak is a characteristic of the
The chemical composition of metakaolin (Table 2) shows amorphous or near-amorphous S iO2–Al2O3 system (Živica
a high alumina content of 39.8% attributed to the dehy- et al. 2011). The sharp exothermic peak at 987 °C represents
droxylated kaolin clay including the small undecomposed the reorganization of the amorphous structure of metakaolin
portions. The SEM micrograph of MK-K shows two dis- to crystalline spinel.
tinct areas (Fig. 2). The EDX analysis of the selected spots
showed the agglomerated area contains mainly O, Al, and Compressive strength
Si as major elements in the reactive metakaolinite (Fig. 2a),
while the second smooth area contains mainly O and Si that The compressive strength of the geopolymer concrete was
identify the non-reactive quartz phase (Fig. 2b). measured according to ASTM C 39; three cubic replicates
The data of XRD pattern (Fig. 3 ) confirm the presence were tested for each concrete mixture. Figure 5 shows the
of intense and sharp quartz peaks (Q) as main constituent; compressive strength of the geopolymer concrete mixed with
the kaolinite peak (K) appears as the second main constituent increasing content of S
iO2/Al2O3, and both concrete mixtures
identified at 12.34° and 24.64° (7.16 Å and 3.349 Å). A weak achieved initial strength at an early age of 28 days of more
peak of anatase is observed at 3.56 Å. The kaolin clay is almost than 70% of their final strength. The GPC-30 achieved a 3-day
totally dehydroxylated upon calcinations, and the respective strength of ~ 20 MPa that increased to 28 MPa, 32 MPa, and
lines disappear with the appearance of weak hump for the ~ 40 MPa after 7, 28, and 360 days, respectively. The adhesion
amorphous aluminosilicate phases at the 2θ range ~ 20°–30°. between the different concrete components in GPC-40 was
The X-ray pattern of the calcined clay shows main d-value significantly improved by increasing the S iO2/Al2O3 ratio to
2.8, resulting in compressive strength of ~ 29 MPa, 40 MPa,
and ~ 56 MPa after 7, 28, and 360 days, respectively.
Table 1 Formulation of metakaolin geopolymer concrete and cement
concrete mixtures Splitting tensile strength
3
Constituents (Kg/m ) GPC-30 GPC-40 CC-30 CC-40
The splitting tensile strength of GPC-40 and CC-40 was meas-
MK-K 577 542.5 – –
ured according to ASTM C 496 (Fig. 6). Three replicates were
Cement – – 325 400
tested for each concrete cylinder with 150 mm diameter and
Fine aggregate 538.5 506.4 725 625
300 mm length at the age of 7 days and 28 days. At the early
Coarse aggregate 807.8 760 1200 1150
age of 7 days, the geopolymer concrete showed higher splitting
Alkaline activator 245.8 281 – –
tensile strength (15 MPa) than conventional cement concrete
Water 96.2 107 135 160
(13 MPa). However, both concrete mixtures showed similar
Density (t/m3) 2.27 2.20 2.39 2.34
splitting strength of 24 MPa at the age of 28 days.
Table 2 Chemical composition Material SiO2 Al2O3 Na2O Fe2O3 CaO TiO2 K2O MgO SO3 P2O5 LOI
of metakaolin (oxides wt.%)
MK-K 52.3 39.8 0.11 1.29 1.75 2.32 0.09 0.2 0.38 0.04 0.73
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674 R. Abbas et al.
Fig. 3 The X-ray diffraction patterns of the as-received kaolin clay and the calcined clay (MK-K)
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Preparation of geopolymer concrete using Egyptian kaolin clay and the study of its environmental… 675
120 20
(a) (b)
100 995 °C
15
987 °C
Heat flow (µV/mg) 80
10
80
7 Days
60 28 Days
40 90 Days
180 Days
20
360 Days
0
GPC-30 GPC-40
Gepolymer concrete
Modulus of elasticity
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676 R. Abbas et al.
Fig. 8 Nyquist impedance plots of GPC-40 and CC-40 in 3.5 wt.% NaCl
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Preparation of geopolymer concrete using Egyptian kaolin clay and the study of its environmental… 677
Globally, previous life cycle studies have focused mainly In practice, this is impossible and a number of flows must be
on carbon dioxide emissions and energy consumption of either roughly estimated or cut off and subsequently ignored
cement industry (Davidovits 1994), concrete (Flower and (Guinée et al. 2002). Previous literature has shown the ser-
Sanjayan 2007), concrete constituents (Gursel and Ostertag vice life of the geopolymer paste (Mclellan et al. 2011) and
2016) and geopolymer concrete (Habert et al. 2011). The geopolymer concrete (Ostwal and Chitawadagi 2014) was
LCA tool has been used in a limited extent in Egyptian stud- better than the OPC. Besides, the durability of geopolymer
ies, mainly for building and construction materials, which concrete was better than that of ordinary Portland cement
accounted for 44% of the total published documents in Egypt concrete (Singh et al. 2013). However, the demolition of
(Yacout 2019). Publications in this area estimated the envi- both concrete systems results in the same kind of inert mate-
ronmental impacts of the cement industry in Egypt (Ali et al. rials as binder and aggregates, so the stages of service and
2016), the Egyptian typical residential building (Ali et al. demolition were omitted in the current study as common
2015), and low-income housing buildings in Egypt (Mar- operations of both systems. The system boundary of the
zouk et al. 2017). To date, no LCA study of geopolymers has current study was chosen as cradle-to-gate type; it was set
been conducted in Egypt due to their recent history and the only for the manufacturing stages starting from the extrac-
apparent deficiency of Egyptian databases for the production tion of kaolin clay until the end of the production process
and treatment of various materials and processes. of metakaolin geopolymer, as shown in Fig. 9. This type of
SimaPro is a powerful program used to implement life limitation is quite common, internationally called cradle-
cycle assessment of a product system in accordance with to-gate analysis (Borges et al. 2014; Habert et al. 2010b).
ISO 14040/44. This program is equipped with various data-
bases for materials and processes commonly used in the con- Functional unit
struction sector. In the current analysis, SimaPro V.8.5 and
Ecoinvent database V.3.0 were used to assess the potential The functional unit determines what is being studied and is
environmental impacts of two concrete systems: the geo- therefore linked to all the inputs and outputs of the studied
polymer concrete and the cement concrete. system. In the current study, the functional unit was identi-
fied as a cubic meter (1 m3) for both concrete systems for the
Goal and scope definition same strength grades at the age of 28 days.
The goal of this LCA study is to assess the environmental Life cycle inventory analysis (LCI)
impacts of two strength grades of metakaolin geopolymer
concrete and compare the results with the reference cement Inventory analysis (LCI) indicates both the inputs and the
concrete with the same strength grades. The assessments outputs of a product where the energy and raw materials
were based on four main environmental categories of climate consumptions are considered as input data whereas prod-
change, human health, resources depletion, and ecosystem ucts and different emissions into the air, water, and land are
quality. This assessment will help Egyptian decision makers considered as output data. The production of the metakaolin
to identify and recommend an eco-friendly concrete system. geopolymer requires two types of materials, namely kaolin
clay and an alkaline-activated solution. The dehydroxyla-
System boundary tion of pure kaolinite results in a mass loss of 14%, which
corresponds to the mass in bound hydroxyl ions in kaolinite
Based on ISO 14040/44 standards, system boundary defines (Ilić et al. 2010). Thus, the production of 1.0 kg of metaka-
the unit processes involved within the LCA. There are three olin binder needs 1.16 kg of kaolin clay (Chandrasekhar
commonly accepted system boundaries, namely cradle to et al. 1996). Natural kaolin clay requires few processing
gate, cradle to site, and cradle to grave. Cradle-to-gate sys- techniques to be transformed into the reactive metakaolin
tem boundary includes all impacts from extraction of raw phase. Data modeling of energy consumption in the pro-
materials, processing, and manufacturing into the end prod- cess of metakaolin production was based on field visits to
uct. Cradle-to-site system boundary includes the cradle-to- the metakaolin producer site. Different types of energy have
gate impacts and the transport of the product to the site of its been consumed in the production of metakaolin such as gas-
use, while cradle-to-grave system boundary includes cradle- oline in the rotary kiln feeding and electricity in the crushing
to-site impacts as well as impacts associated with the main- and grinding of metakaolin. The production of sodium sili-
tenance, energy consumed, and end-of-life scenarios such cate heavily contributes to the global warming, as melting of
as how the item will be disposed/reused/recycled (McGrath quartz sand with sodium carbonate (soda) at 1300–1500 °C
et al. 2018). leads to high CO2 emissions and very high energy consump-
In principle, LCA should track all the processes in the tion (Habert et al. 2011). Various amounts of CO2 emis-
life cycle of a given product system, from cradle to grave. sions were reported for the production of sodium silicate
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678 R. Abbas et al.
as 1.514 kg C O2 eq (Turner and Collins 2013), 1.066 kg were adopted by the Ecoinvent V3.0 database. Inventory
CO2 eq (Fawer et al. 1999), and 1.0 kg CO2 eq (Duxson data for the production of one ton of metakaolin binder are
et al. 2007b) per kg sodium silicate. Fawer et al. (1999) have given in Table 4.
shown a “cradle-to-factory-gate” analysis for the production
of sodium silicate, covering all production processes, nota- Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA)
bly the two basic operations of the furnace and hydrothermal
route and even the processes of dissolution, blending, and Impact assessment methodologies aim to associate each
filtering. Therefore, the study of Fawer et al. (1999) has been life cycle inventory with the corresponding environmental
used as a reference for sodium silicate production in previous impacts. There are two main schools of impact assessment
literature (Borges et al. 2014; Habert et al. 2010a). In addi- methods: (1) pressure-oriented methods such as CML (Gui-
tion, the production of sodium hydroxide through electroly- née et al. 2002) or EDIP (Hauschild and Wenzel 1998) that
sis of brine consumes high energy and leads to additional restrict quantitative modeling to relatively early stages in
emissions of carbon dioxide (Garcia-Herrero et al. 2017a). the cause–effect chain to limit uncertainties and (2) damage-
The estimated values of CO2 emissions in the production of oriented methods such as Eco-indicator 99 (Goedkoop and
NaOH were 0.633 kg C O2 (Thannimalay et al. 2013), 1.0 kg Spriensma 2001) or IMPACT 2002+ (Jolliet et al. 2003)
CO2 (Duxson et al. 2007b), and 1.915 kg of CO2 (Turner that try to model the cause–effect chain up to the endpoint,
et al. 2013) per kg NaOH. The apparent difference in CO2 or damage (Chen et al. 2010).
emissions values for the production of sodium silicate and IMPACT 2002+ methodology takes advantages of mid-
sodium hydroxide is due to the type of raw materials used, point-based indicators such as CML (Guinée et al. 2002)
the difference in manufacturing processes, and the transport and damage-based indicators such as the Eco-indicator 99
factor not included in many studies. (Goedkoop and Spriensma 2001). It links all types of life
So far, databases are not available for the production of cycle inventories via 14 midpoint categories to four damage
sodium silicate and sodium hydroxide, not even in the Mid- categories (endpoint categories). The damage categories are
dle East. Also, it was extremely difficult to collect actual attained by multiplying the midpoint characterization poten-
data from different production sites because of the privacy of tials with definite damage factors of reference substances
data. Hence, data for this work have been sourced from the as given in Table 5. Human health damage category is
Ecoinvent V3.0 database and previous work of Fawer et al. expressed as disability-adjusted life years per kg of emitted
(1999) and Thannimalay et al. (2013). Inventory data for the substance (DALY/kg emission), which is defined as the num-
production of all components of Portland cement concrete ber of years of human life lost or in suffering from disease.
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Preparation of geopolymer concrete using Egyptian kaolin clay and the study of its environmental… 679
Table 4 Inventory data for the production of one ton metakaolin binder
Inputs Quantity
Ecosystem quality damage category is expressed as a poten- categories (human health, ecosystems, and resources) by
tially disappeared fraction over a certain area and during a their normalization values in the impact assessment meth-
certain time per kg of emitted substance (PDF m2 year/kg odology used (Prasara-A et al. 2019). The unit of all normal-
emitted). For climate change damage category, the global ized midpoint/damage factors is [pers year/unitemission],
warming is the only contributing midpoint category with i.e., the number of equivalent persons affected during 1 year
time horizon of 500 years to account for both short-term and per unit of emission.
long-term effects and expressed as kg eq CO2. Two midpoint In the current study, IMPACT 2002+ V2.14 damage-
categories, namely mineral extraction and non-renewable oriented methodology was applied to evaluate the environ-
energy, are belonging to the resource damage category that mental impacts of the two studied concrete systems; all cal-
is expressed as the surplus of energy necessary for further culations were done using SimaPro software.
extraction of minerals and fossil fuels (MJ).
Besides, IMPACT 2002+ methodology utilizes normali- Life cycle assessment results and interpretation
zation factors to avoid the scale effects of the different indi-
cators and to minimize the possibility that some parameters Geopolymer concrete made from pure metakaolin requires a
are of the type “higher is better” and others “lower is better” large amount of sodium silicate solution to activate it; there-
(Mateus et al. 2013). In previous literature, the normaliza- fore, it showed higher environmental impacts than geopoly-
tion of the different environmental impacts of products was mer concrete made of fly ash or granulated blast furnace slag
carried out by dividing the result for three main damage (Habert et al. 2011). Previously published LCA studies were
13
680 R. Abbas et al.
limited to estimating carbon dioxide emissions and energy quality damage category. Cement concrete showed similar
consumption without addressing other environmental cat- performance where the heaviest environmental impacts were
egories such as human health and ecosystem quality. This on the climate change and human health damage categories,
makes it more difficult to compare the environmental effects while the least impact was on the ecosystem quality dam-
of metakaolin geopolymer with other geopolymer types. age category (Fig. 11). The negative impacts of geopolymer
The overall impact of the production of 1 m3 of geopoly- concrete were due to the heavy effects of the production of
mer concrete was less than cement concrete by 16.9 points the sodium silicate solution, while cement production was
for the strength grade of 30 MPa and 23.1 points for the the major contributor to the adverse environmental impacts
strength grade of 40 MPa, representing a decrease in the of cement concrete (Fig. 12).
total environmental burdens by 33% for GPC-30 and 37%
for GPC-40 (Fig. 10). The production of geopolymer con-
crete resulted in higher environmental effects on midpoint Climate change damage category
categories such as carcinogens, non-carcinogens, ionizing
radiation, aquatic and terrestrial ecotoxicity, and mineral Both strength grades of the geopolymer concrete achieved
extraction compared to cement concrete (Table 6). a significant reduction in the global warming potential by
The heaviest environmental impacts of the production of ~ 61% compared to cement concretes. GPC-30 and GPC-40
geopolymer concrete were on the climate change and human showed CO2 emission values of 124 and 142 kg CO2 eq/m3,
health damage categories, followed by the resources dam- respectively, while CC-30 and CC-40 showed CO2 emission
age category, while the least impact was on the ecosystem values of 297 and 363 kg CO2 eq/m3, respectively.
Fig. 10 Environmental impact assessments of different grades of geopolymer concrete and cement concrete using IMPACT 2002+ V2.14/single
score
Table 6 Environmental impacts Impact category Unit CC-30 CC-40 GPC-30 GPC-40
for the production of 1 m3
of the two concrete systems Carcinogens kg C2H3Cl eq 0.287 0.325 0.756 0.882
with different strength grades
Non-carcinogens kg C2H3Cl eq 0.312 0.351 1.6 1.88
(midpoint method)
Respiratory inorganics kg PM2.5 eq 0.125 0.15 0.111 0.127
Ionizing radiation Bq C-14 eq 499 593 738 862
Ozone layer depletion kg CFC-11 eq 1.53E−05 1.86E−05 1.44E−05 1.68E−05
Respiratory organics kg C2H4 eq 0.051 0.0616 0.017 0.0197
Aquatic ecotoxicity kg TEG water 472 461 7.12E3 8.38E3
Terrestrial ecotoxicity kg TEG soil 226 240 1.99E3 2.34E3
Terrestrial acid/nutri kg SO2 eq 3.97 4.82 2.36 2.7
Land occupation m2org arable 0.494 0.473 1.86 2.15
Aquatic acidification kg SO2 eq 0.83 1.01 0.69 0.784
Aquatic eutrophication kg PO4 P-lim 0.0019 0.002 0.0257 0.0303
Global warming kg CO2 eq 297 363 124 142
Non-renewable energy MJ primary 1.22E3 1.47E3 1.23E3 1.39E3
Mineral extraction MJ surplus 1.03 1.09 6.64 7.81
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Preparation of geopolymer concrete using Egyptian kaolin clay and the study of its environmental… 681
Fig. 11 Environmental impact assessments of different grades of geopolymer concrete and cement concrete using IMPACT 2002+ V2.14/nor-
malization
Fig. 12 Environmental impact assessments of the constituents of GPC-40 and CC-40 using IMPACT 2002+ V2.14/normalization
Geopolymer concrete made from pure metakaolin requires concrete of 44–64% (McLellan et al. 2011), 62–66% (Rou-
a higher amount of sodium silicate solution to be activated wette 2012), and 70% (Weil et al. 2009). Others reported a
due to its low Si/Al ratio. Sodium silicate contributed 60% lower reduction in the global warming of 25–45% (Stengel
(84.4 kg CO2 eq) of the total global warming potential of et al. 2009) and 9% (Turner and Collins 2013).
metakaolin geopolymer concrete, sodium hydroxide con- One aspect that stood out in the environmental impact
tributor by 23% (33.2 kg CO2 eq), while metakaolin only studies of geopolymers is the large environmental footprint
contributed by 13% (18.1 kg CO2 eq) (Table 7). Moreover, (up to 80–90%) of the sodium silicate solution that is pro-
cement production contributed more than 97% (357 kg CO2 duced using the Solvay process (Luukkonen et al. 2018).
eq) of the total impact of cement concrete on the climate Besides, the data of sodium silicate production are outdated
change damage category. These results were relevant to the and the manufacturers would not disclose information on
estimated reduction in the global warming of geopolymer current energy usage and emissions.
13
682 R. Abbas et al.
Table 7 Environmental impacts Damage category Unit Metakaolin NaOH Sodium silicate (40%) Cement
of the main components of
GPC-40 and CC-40 Human health DALY 1.29E−05 9.89E−06 6.71E−05 9.95E−05
Ecosystem quality PDF * m2 * year 0.387 0.892 21.5 5.59
Climate change kg CO2 eq 18.1 33.2 84.4 357
Resources MJ primary 260.4 188 862 1390
Due to the inclusion of the eco-friendly metakaolin as a Contrary to by-product materials such as fly ash and slag,
binder rather than cement in the concrete mixture, metakao- natural kaolin and sodium silicate contribute significantly to
lin geopolymer concrete showed slightly less environmental the depletion of resources. The non-renewable energy con-
effects on the human health damage category by 5.1–9.4% sumption of GPC-30 (1230 MJ) was slightly higher than that
compared to cement concrete (Table 8). of CC-30 (1220 MJ), which was reduced by 4.7% for GPC-
During the production of sodium silicate, the fusion of 40 compared to CC-40 (Table 8). Sodium silicate negatively
soda ash and silica sand adversely affected several environ- affected the depletion of the resources by ~ 62%, followed
mental indicators such as carcinogens, ionizing radiation, by metakaolin (~ 21%) and sodium hydroxide (~ 14%). The
and the ozone layer depletion, resulting in a negative impact production of cement was the major contributor to the deple-
of geopolymer concrete on the human health damage cat- tion of resources by more than 93% of the total impacts of
egory. Sodium silicate contributed by 60–68% to the human cement concrete.
health damage category, followed by metakaolin (13–16%) Based on the above results, it should be noted that once
and sodium hydroxide (10%). High environmental effects of metakaolin is accepted as a building material in the Egyp-
geopolymers have been reported for categories other than tian construction sector, its production will be significantly
global warming such as human toxicity due to the heavy improved by the establishment of several extraction and
effects of sodium silicate solution (Habert et al. 2011). The processing plants. Moreover, the availability of natural raw
negative impact of cement on the human health damage cat- materials in Egypt and the low energy needed to deal with
egory was higher than 90%. kaolin compared to cement will help reduce the environmen-
tal burdens of geopolymers.
Ecosystem quality
The two concrete systems exhibited the least negative impact Allocation procedure
on ecosystem quality (Fig. 11). However, the environmen-
tal effects of geopolymer concrete on the ecosystem quality Whenever dealing with multi-functional processes, ISO
were 68% higher than those of cement concrete (Table 8). 14040 (ISO, 2006) recommends a three-step procedure
The high sodium silicate content used in metakaolin acti- with regard to allocation. In the first type, the allocation
vation adversely affected all midpoint indicators such as should be avoided by expanding the system boundaries to
aquatic ecotoxicity, terrestrial ecotoxicity, aquatic acidi- include all the additional functions of the by-products. The
fication, aquatic eutrophication, terrestrial acid, and land second type, when allocation cannot be avoided, the allo-
occupation by more than 88% of the total negative effect cation reflects an underlying physical relationship usually
of geopolymer concrete. This effect was worse than that of mass allocation. The third type is such as market value or
cement binder (70–75%) on the ecosystem quality. Sodium economic allocation. No by-products are produced dur-
hydroxide and metakaolin binder also contributed to the eco- ing the production of both the metakaolin binder and the
system quality by 3.6% and 2.0% (Table 7). sodium silicate solution. Therefore, their production is
30 MPa 5.1 58 + 68 +1
40 MPa 9.4 61 + 69 4.7
40 MPa (mass allocation) 12.2 64 + 68.7 8.6
13
Preparation of geopolymer concrete using Egyptian kaolin clay and the study of its environmental… 683
considered as a single function process. Industrially, caus- of GPC-40 were slightly reduced (Table 8) except for the
tic soda is most commonly manufactured by the electroly- ecosystem quality damage category. These high environ-
sis of saline solution (NaCl), which is a multi-functional mental loads are due to the fact that the main contributor
process that produces chlorine, sodium hydroxide, and to the environmental burden of geopolymers is the produc-
hydrogen. tion of sodium silicate, which adversely affects all environ-
The mass allocation coefficient Cm can be calculated as mental categories. Therefore, to reduce the environmental
the mass ratio between main product and by-product (Chen burden of geopolymers, it is necessary to improve pro-
et al. 2010), where mby-product and mmainproduct are the masses duction techniques and use a cleaner and cheaper energy
of by-product and of the main product, respectively. source.
mbyproduct
Cm =
mmainproduct + mbyproduct Geopolymer cost analysis
The economic allocation coefficient Ce is calculated as
During the past few decades, there has been a grow-
follows:
ing demand for new construction materials that have low
($.m)byproduct impacts on the environment and affect sustainability. Geo-
Ce = polymer concretes were eventually developed with the aim
($.m)mainproduct + ($.m)byproduct
of reducing the carbon footprint by eliminating cement use
where ($·m) is the price per unit of the materials ($) multi- and reducing the cost by using industrial by-products which
plied by the mass of materials produced during the process otherwise would be dumped as waste materials (Mathew
(Chen et al. 2010). et al. 2013). In addition, geopolymer concrete as a promising
The process of electrolysis is manufactured in a fixed green alternative to cement concrete is only effective when
ratio of 1 t of chlorine, 1.13 t of caustic soda, and 0.03 t of there is no hindrance on its adoption on a large production
hydrogen, this product combination called electrochemical scale.
unit (ECU) (Garcia-Herrero et al. 2017a). Preliminary cost study of manufacturing normal strength
Garcia-Herrero et al. (2017b) have studied both the grade (30 MPa) and high strength grade (40 MPa) geopoly-
mass allocation and the economic allocation of the elec- mer concrete was conducted and compared with that of OPC
trolysis process of brine solution. Both types of alloca- concrete (Table 9). Market prices were used for the ingredi-
tions showed similar effects of the production of sodium ents of geopolymer concrete and cement concrete because
hydroxide (70%) of the total environmental burdens. As the actual production cost is not available at the present time.
opposed to mass allocation, the economic allocation has An initial cost analysis can be applied for a new product
led to significantly varied results for the production of without considering all its stages (Zhang et al. 2019).
hydrogen due to economic fluctuation over time. The total cost of producing 1 m3 GPC was three times
In the present study, the effect of sodium hydroxide pro- higher than the total cost of producing 1 m3 OPC concrete
duction has been reduced to 70% of its total environmental for both strength grades. This is due to the high cost of
impacts to investigate the new environmental burdens of basic ingredients of geopolymer system. Contrary to waste
the metakaolin geopolymer concrete. The mass allocation by-products materials such as fly ash and slag, metakao-
of sodium hydroxide production was applied according to lin with its low Si/Al ratio, high finesse, and its plate-like
Garcia-Herrero et al. (2017b). All environmental impacts structure consumes large quantities of sodium silicate and
sodium hydroxide during the alkaline activation step. For the
13
684 R. Abbas et al.
Fine
aggregate Coarse
Sodium 1.8% aggregate
silicate Coarse Sodium 6.2%
18.2% aggregate silicate
7.0% 19.6%
Fine
Fine aggregate
aggregate Cement 6% Cement
8% 59.30% 65.60%
Fig. 13 Cost contribution of each material to geopolymer concrete and cement concrete a GPC-30, b GPC-40, c CC-30, and d CC-40
metakaolin geopolymer concrete (Fig. 13), sodium hydrox- using Portland cement (Dange and Suryawanshi 2017); fly
ide was the major contributor to the total production cost by ash concrete can only replace Portland cement concrete,
~ 41%, followed by metakaolin binder (~ 31%) and sodium provided that the price of water glass is reduced to a level
silicate (~ 19%). Cement as a main constituent of conven- similar to that of Portland cement (Vilamová and Piecha
tional concrete contributed by ~ 62% of the total production 2016). However, Thaarrini and Dhivya (2016) showed the
cost of OPC concrete. cost of production of OPC concrete was 11% higher than that
Despite the low temperature required to convert natural of GPC for higher grades, while for lower grades the cost of
kaolin clay to the reactive metakaolin phase (850 °C), the production of GPC was 1.7% higher than that of production
production cost of metakaolin is similar to the cost of cement of OPC concrete.
production due to the apparent lack of plants that can per- Assi et al. (2018) proposed a new mix design for geo-
form various treatment processes for kaolin clay. polymer concrete based on the use of sodium hydroxide
The results of Tempest et al. (2015) revealed the cost and silica fume-based activating solution with the addition
of geopolymer concrete based on fly ash was three times of OPC to the mixture. The new mixture showed superior
more than that of cement concrete of equivalent strength. properties, lower cost of up to a 50%, which represents a
Although industrial by-product materials such as fly ash and cost-competitive, more environmentally friendly alternative
GGBFS are often inexpensive and consume significantly less to OPC. However, adding OPC to the geopolymer mixture
content of the alkaline-activated solution than the metakao- does not seem to be a good solution for producing a green
lin, the addition of the activating chemicals has made the system as the resulting product is not a pure geopolymer.
cost of geopolymer concrete ($210.36/m3) much higher than Since the metakaolin geopolymer in the present work
Portland cement concrete ($66.55/m3). Mclellan et al. (2011) is the first attempt to an environmentally friendly concrete
showed a wide variation in the calculated cost of geopoly- system, further improvements are required to reduce its pro-
mers ranging from 7% lower to 39% higher compared with duction cost. However, once metakaolin is accepted as a
OPC depending on the source location, the energy source, building material in the industry, its price is expected to be
and the mode of transport. lower than cement due to its natural availability as well as
The price of concrete using materials such as fly ash was the difference in the processing temperature (1450 °C for
several times higher than the cost of conventional concrete cement and 850 °C for metakaolin). Besides, both sodium
13
Preparation of geopolymer concrete using Egyptian kaolin clay and the study of its environmental… 685
silicate and sodium hydroxide can be manufactured or alkalinity of these materials reduces the required amount of
extracted from waste-stream materials in a form adequate alkali activator, while the high content of amorphous silica
for construction (Tempest et al. 2015). Thus, the high cost can be processed to obtain an eco-friendly waterglass, which
of the production of geopolymer concrete at present work reduces the depletion of resources and reduces the high cost
should not be taken as a deterrent for further investigation of materials used during geopolymer synthesis.
because the materials used were above the level required for
construction and their prices were based on the market price, Acknowledgements The authors appreciatively acknowledge the Min-
istry of Scientific Research and the Science and Technology Develop-
not production price. ment Fund (STDF) who provided the financial support for the project
“Green Building System for Low-Cost Housing,” Grant Number 5848
under which this research was performed.
Conclusions
13
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