Construction and Building Materials 150 (2017) 681–688

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Construction and Building Materials

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Characteristic study of geopolymer fly ash sand as a replacement to

natural river sand
U.S. Agrawal a,⇑, S.P. Wanjari a, D.N. Naresh b
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur 440010, India
b
National Thermal Power Cooperation, Raipur 492001, India

h i g h l i g h t s

 A new approach to replace the natural sand by artificial sand in the field of civil engineering.
 Fly ash and geopolymer was utilized to prepare artificial sand known as geopolymer fly ash sand (GFS).
 Different properties of geopolymer fly sand (GFS) were studied and compared with the natural river sand (NRS).

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The increase in construction activities is leading to the depletion and the exploitation of the natural river
Received 13 February 2017 sand, causing adverse effects on the environment. Therefore there is an urgent need to find an alternative
Received in revised form 10 May 2017 substitute or replacement of natural river sand. Presently crushed sand or high volume fly ash are used as
Accepted 4 June 2017
natural sand replacement, however geoploymer fly ash sand could be better environment friendly
replacement. In this research geopolymer fly ash sand (GFS) particles are prepared by geopolymerising
fly ash and its properties are compared with natural sand which yield satisfactory results in terms of
Keywords:
physical, chemical, mechanical and durability properties. GFS has comparable specific gravity (2.46),
Geopolymer
Fly ash
good particle size distribution (zone-I) and frictional angle (42°) as compared to natural river sand
Sand (NRS). Though GFS has pH (12.2) value and water absorption (5.61%) value slightly higher than the
Physical properties NRS, the soundness and the alkali silica reaction are within limits as per Indian Standard code. The mortar
Chemical properties specimens with GFS achieved 93.6% at 28 day compressive strength as compared to NRS, indicating GFS
Mechanical properties has the potential to replace natural river sand in construction activities.
Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction conducted by Siddique et al. suggested replacement of natural sand

With the increase in the construction activities, the demand for
river sand has increased exponentially causing the depletion and
exploitation of the natural sand thus resulting adverse effects on
the environment such as sliding of the river shores, lowering water
table, etc. Hence, there is an urgent need for the identification of an
alternative binding material for the replacement of river sand in
the preparation of concrete [1]. In addition to this, in India, nearly
110 million tons of fly ash is produced annually from the thermal
power plants, out of which only 30% fly ash is used, while the rest
is dumped into the landfills [2]. Various researches were done by
replacing natural sand with fly ash, however it was found that fly
ash can only replace natural sand partially [3–6]. The study
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: unnatiagrawal2889@gmail.com (U.S. Agrawal), swapnil_wanjari@
yahoo.o.in (S.P. Wanjari), nareshdn@gmail.com (D.N. Naresh).
by fly ash up to 40% [4]. If the natural sand is completely replaced
by fly ash a large reduction in compressive strength (73.1%) and
workability (13.4%) was reported bya Turhan Bilin et al. [7]. Thus,
to utilize the large volumes of fly ash and to reduce the use of
depleting natural sand, this research focused on the preparation
of the geopolymer fly ash sand and its incorporation into the mor-
tar and concrete as a complete replacement of natural sand.
In the recent past, geopolymer concrete are widely researched
as a replacement to traditional OPC as they help in reducing CO2
emission by 26–45% [8–12]. Another major advantage of utilizing
geoploymer concrete is its ability to utilize waste materials such
as fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag, etc as, geopoly-
mers are mainly composed of inorganic alumino-silicate network,
formed by the dissolution of materials having silica and alumina
in an alkaline solution containing sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and
sodium silicate (Na2SiO3) or potassium hydroxide (KOH) and
potassium silicate (K2SiO3) yielding polymeric Si–O–Al–O bonds

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.06.029
0950-0618/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
682 U.S. Agrawal et al. / Construction and Building Materials 150 (2017) 681–688

in polymeric form [8,13,14]. The physio-chemical, microstructural Table 1

and mechanical properties of the geopolymer product depends on Physical and chemical properties of fly ash.

the chemical compositions of the source materials and the alkaline Properties Fly ash
liquid [11,14,15]. Geopolymer concrete has been reported to %wt
achieve good mechanical strength and durability properties Specific Gravity 2.12
[16–18]. However most of the studies reported that heat curing Specific Surface Area 382.3 m2/kg
is required to activate geopolymer concrete. Generally with the Particle Size Distribution 37–420 mm
Median Particle Size 159.7 mm
increase in the temperature range from 60° to 120 °C, an increase SiO2 52.32
in the mechanical strength properties of the geopolymer concrete Al2O3 26.29
was observed by many researchers [18–24]. Whereas some Fe2O3 5.96
researchers reported a gradual increase in strength of geopolymer CaO 5.83
K2O 0.81
concrete at ambient curing temperature [20,25,26]. Geopolymer
MgO 1.57
binders have contributed significantly, towards resistances to sul- Na2O 0.04
phate, acid and fire exposures [4,8–13,16,17,23,27,28]. Many TiO2 1.66
researches were done by replacing OPC cement with geopolymer SO3 0.15
however only few researches have focused on replacing geopoly- P2O5 0.47
Loss on Ignition 4.48
mer with natural river sand [9,12,24,28]. As per the work con-
Total 99.553
ducted by E J Guades, they have replaced fly ash with natural
sand in the preparation of geopolymer fly ash mortar and observed
that with the increase in the amount of sand the compressive and
tensile strength of the mortar reduces [29].
In the study conducted by S Rao et al. [30] laboratory trial were
conducted to produce fly ash geopolymer sand as a replacement
the natural river sand in concrete. Various properties such as speci-
fic gravity, particle size distribution, pH, TDS, frictional angle, XRD,
SEM and mortar properties of fly ash geopolymer sand. In this
study, they have used laboratory grade amorphous silica and
sodium hydroxide and the duration of curing time required for
fly ash geopolymer sand was very high (100 °C for 7 days) but it
has the potential to be reduced and applied in concrete. Hence
the current research firstly, focused on examining the usefulness
of geopolymer fly ash sand (GFS) as a replacement to natural river
sand (NRS) secondly, on the reduction of curing period to one hour
Fig. 1. Particle size analysis of fly ash.
and thirdly, on the use of industrial grade of sodium silicate and
sodium hydroxide instead of laboratory grade chemicals to meet
an alternative environment friendly as well as techno-economical
material to replace the depleting NRS and also to utilize the abun-
dant fly ash in the country.

2. Materials and experimental program

2.1. Materials

The geopolymer fly ash sand (GFS) used in this study, was prepared by mixing
fly ash in the sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium silicate (Na2SiO3), geopolymer
solution. The fly ash used in the study was procurred from Sipat Thermal Power
Plant, India and its physical and chemical properties such as specific gravity as
per IS 1727 (1967) [31], specific surface area by Blaine’s air permeability apparatus
as per IS 1727 (1967) [31], particle size distribution by Microtac Particle Size ana-
lyzer and chemical composition as per XRF (X-ray fluorescence) were determined
and tabulated in Table 1. The specific gravity and the specific surface area of the
fly ash particles was found as of 2.12 and 382.3 m2/kg respectively. The diameter Fig. 2. Optimization of geopolymer liquid solution as a function of NaOH and
of the fly ash particle varied from 37 mm to 420 mm and the median particle size Na2SiO3/NaOH.
of 159.7 mm as observed in Fig. 1. On the basis of SiO2 = 52.32%, Al2O3 = 26.29%,
Fe2O3 = 5.96% and CaO = 5.83% content the fly ash was identified as class-F fly ash
as per ASTM (C618 08) [47]. 1 h at 100 °C. From the Fig. 2, it was observed that the 10 M NaOH and Na2SiO3/
The NaOH and Na2SiO3 used for the study was procured from Kerala, India hav- NaOH ratio of 2 yield maximum compressive strength and was selected as the opti-
ing 90% purity in the pellet form and SiO2: Na2O = 2 (where, SiO2 = 29.8%, mum geopolymer liquid solution.
Na2O = 14.9%) respectively. The other materials such as cement confirming to IS
8112: 2013 [32] and natural river sand (NRS) were obtained locally.
2.3. Preparation of geopolymer fly ash sand particles (GFS)

2.2. Optimization of the geopolymer liquid solution
Preliminary trials were conducted in order to optimize the amount of NaOH and
Na2SiO3 for the preparation of geopolymer fly ash sand (GFS). For this purpose the
cubes of 70.7 mm  70.7 mm  70.7 mm were cast by mixing fly ash, NaOH and
Na2SiO3 in the proportion of 3:1 by varying the molarity of NaOH from 6 M-12 M
and the ratio of Na2SiO3/NaOH from 0.5 to 2.5 respectively as shown in Fig. 2.
The compressive strength of the cubes was tested after heating the specimens for
For the preparation of GFS, fly ash was heated up to 60 °C to remove extra mois-
ture content and the optimum geopolymer liquid solution as obtained (10 M NaOH,
Na2SiO3/NaOH = 2) were mixed together for 10 min in the proportion of 3:1 to pro-
duce a dry mix having a workability of 26 s as per Vee Bee Consistometer Test [48].
This mix was then sieved through 4.75 mm and 2.36 mm sieve to yield particles of
varying size similar to the shape and size of the natural river sand (NRS) (Fig. 3)
after heating the sieved particles for 1 h at 100 °C. After heating the particles, it
was kept in ambient temperature for one day. Tests such as specific gravity,
water absorption, particle size distribution direct shear test, pH, soundness, alkali
 U.S. Agrawal et al. / Construction and Building Materials 150 (2017) 681–688 683

Fig. 3. Different geopolymer fly ash sand particle (GFS).

aggregate reaction, compressive strength, XRD, SEM and XRF were performed on
the GFS and the results were compared with NRS, which has been discussed in
result and discussion section.

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Specific gravity and water absorption

The average specific gravity and the water absorption of the GFS
and NRS was determined as per IS 2386 (Part-III): 1963 [33] and is
tabulated in Table 2. From the table it was observed that GFS had
specific gravity of 2.43 which is less as compared to NRS having
specific gravity as 2.67, making GFS light-weight as compared
NRS. There was an increase in the specific gravity of the GFS as
compared to that of the fly ash (2.12) (Table 1), due to the bonding Fig. 4. Particle size distribution of GFS and NRS.
provided by Si-O-Al-O units. Similar results were observed by Rao
et al. [30], they reported specific gravity of fly ash geopolymer sand
(FAPS) as 2.59, which was higher than that of fly ash (2.15). The GFS and NRS was determined as per IS 1498: 1970 [36]. It was
water absorption of the GFS was observed as 5.61% which is higher observed that GFS has Cu = 4 and Cc = 1.17; and NRS had
than NRS (0.82%) (Table 2), which may indicate the porous nature Cu = 3.714 and Cc = 0.80 classifying both as poorly graded soil
of GFS. (for well graded sand Cu > 6 and Cc = 1–3 as per IS 1498 (1970)
[36]. Rao et al. [30] also characterized fly ash geopolymer sand as
poorly graded soil (Cu = 3.25, Cc = 1.55) by following the same
3.2. Particle size distribution
procedure.
The average particle size distribution curve for the GFS and the
NRS was determined as per IS 2386 (Part-I):1963 [34] and com- 3.3. Direct shear test & pH
pared to the upper and lower limits of the standard sand of
zone-I as per IS 383: 2016 [35] as shown in Fig. 4. From the figure The frictional properties of the GFS and the NRS was determined
it was observed that the particle size distribution curve of GFS and by direct shear test as per IS 2720 (Part 13): 1986 [37] by subject-
NRS was similar and are within the upper and lower limits of stan- ing the specimen to 0.25 mm/min strain rate and sheared under a
dard sand thus confirming as zone-I as per IS 383: 2016 [35]. The normal stress of 32.9 kPa and 49.4 kPa as shown in Fig. 5. The slope
coefficient of uniformity (Cu) and coefficient of curvature (Cc) for of the line indicates the frictional angle of the soil sample. The fric-
tional angle of GFS and NRS was observed as 42° and 38° (Table 2)

Table 2
Physical properties of GFS and NRS.

Parameter Geopolymer Natural Recommendation as

Sand Sand per IS 383: 2016 [35]
Specific Gravity 2.46 2.67 >2.1
Frictional Angle in Degrees 42 38 –
pH 12.12 8.16 –
Water Absorption 5.61% 0.82% <5%
Soundness 6% – <10% using Na2SO3
after 5 cycles
Alkali aggregate reaction 0.06% – <0.1% after 16 days
(accelerated mortar bar
test)
Fig. 5. Direct shear test on geopolymer sand and natural sand.
684 U.S. Agrawal et al. / Construction and Building Materials 150 (2017) 681–688
respectively indicating GFS particles could be more of angular in
shape (27° indicate rounded loosely packed grains whereas 45°
indicate angular densely packed grain as per IS 2720 (Part 13):
1986 [37] as shown in Fig. 5). Rao et al. [30] recorded frictional
angle of fly ash geopolymer sand as 35.5° characterizing them as
rounded grain particles.
The pH of the GFS and NRS was determined as per IS 2720 (Part
26): 1987 [38] using ELICO LI 610 pH meter. A pH of 12.12 was
observed in GFS which was higher than NRS with pH of 8.16
(Table 2) indicating that GFS may induce the alkaline environment
when mixed with cement. However this may not hamper the
mechanical properties of concrete as cement hydration also induce
the pH value of 12.8–13.3 during hydration [39]. The fly ash
geopolymer sand as obtained by Rao et al. [30] also achieved the
pH of 12.5, same as GFS.
3.4. Soundness test
The soundness test of aggregates is the indication of the resis-
tance of aggregates to weathering action. An unsound aggregate
leads to the deterioration of the concrete. The soundness test of
the GFS was carried out as per IS 2386 (Part V): 1986 [40] to deter-
mine the behavior of GFS when subjected to weathering action.
The specimen was subjected to alternate wetting and drying for
a total of 14 cycles by immersing it into saturated sodium sulphate
(Na2SO4) and then drying in oven at (110° ± 5°) C for 4–16 h till a
constant weight difference of 0.1% was achieved. An average
decrease of 6% in weight of GFS (Table 2) was observed based on
five cycles, which is within the limits as per IS 383: 2016 (10% after
(a) Before Soundness Test
Fig. 6. GFS particles (a) before soundness test & (b) after soundness test.
Fig. 7. GFS mortar bar (a) before ASR & (b) after ASR.
5 cycles) [35]. Therefore GFS may resist the volume changes when
subjected to weathering action. From the visual examination of the
sample as shown in Fig. 6 it was observed that there was not much
change in the particle size and shape indicating GFS particles may
resist weathering action.
3.5. Alkali silicate reaction (expansion test)
To determine the alkali silica reaction, the mortar bar of size
280 mm  25 mm  25 mm was prepared by mixing GFS with
cement as per ASTM C1260 [30,46]. The specimens were immersed
in 1 M NaOH solution for a period of 14 days at 80 °C temperature
to measure the percent expansion of the sample when exposed to
alkaline environment. The average expansion of the mortar bar
was observed as 0.06% after 16 days which was less than the
threshold limit as per IS 383: 2016 (0.1% after 16 days [35,41]).
The alkali silica reaction gel is generally formed due to the chem-
ical reactions between alkali from OPC and siliceous content from
the aggregates which when exposed to NaOH, the alkali in Portland
Cement lead to the depolymerization of the silica in aggregate gen-
erating alkali-silica gel [42,43], however in case of geopolymer
concrete the fly ash utilize the alkali involved in the chemical reac-
tion to form a cementitious binders providing a good interfacial
bond between the aggregate and the paste interface thus increas-
ing the tensile strength of geopolymer concrete [42,12,43], which
may also be the case in GFS. From the visual examination of the
sample as shown in Fig. 7 very small amount of cracking and
leaching was observed on the mortar bar surface.
(b) After Soundness Test
 U.S. Agrawal et al. / Construction and Building Materials 150 (2017) 681–688 685

Fig. 8. XRD of (a) fly ash and (b) GFS.

3.6. X ray diffraction (XRD) was observed that GFS has quartz, mullite, alumina and sodium
peaks whereas fly ash showed the presence of quartz, mullite, alu-
The XRD of the GFS and fly ash was determined using XPERT mina and calcium. Also a broad hump was observed in fly ash
PRO powder diffractometer as shown in Fig. 8. From the fig it between 0 and 20°, which was not observed in the case of GFS.
686 U.S. Agrawal et al. / Construction and Building Materials 150 (2017) 681–688

Fig. 9. SEM analysis of geopolymer sand.

Table 3 3.7. Scanning electron micrograph

Chemical composition of GFS from XRF.
The scanning electron micrograph (SEM) of GFS was deter-
Elements % Composition of GFS
mined using JSM 6380A as shown in Fig. 9. From the fig, it can
SiO2 55.46
be observed that the particles are irregular in shape, as well as
Al2O3 20.77
Fe2O3 3.01 unreacted fly ash particles due to the incomplete dissolution of
Na2O 7.96 fly ash during the synthesis process were observed on the GSF sur-
MgO 0.69 face. Gum Sung Ryu et al. [44], also observed unreacted fly ash on
CaO 3.39 the geopolymer concrete surface. They reported that these unre-
K2O 0.82
acted fly ash particles not only act as fillers but also contribute in
P2O5 0.42
TiO2 1.66 increasing strength of the matrix with age through the bonding
SO3 0.15 strength provided by the complex reaction between the surfaces
Cl 0.01 of the particles [44]. The GSF had pores on the surface which might
LOI 5.16
have increased the water absorption of the particles as observed in
Total 99.5
Table 2.

3.8. X-ray fluorescence (XRF)

When fly ash is mixed in the alkaline solution, it releases the sili-
con and aluminium ions into the alkaline solution, which leads
to the formation of alumino-silicate bond, which act as a hard bin-
der for imparting strength to the geopolymer material [43]. The
presence of sodium in GFS was due to the addition of NaOH and
Na2SiO3 in the fly ash particles. However calcium peak was not
observed in GFS indicating that some part of calcium was also
utilized during the geopolymeric reaction.
The chemical analysis of geopolymer sand was done using XRF
as shown in Table 3. It was observed that the major components of
geopolymer sand is silicon (SiO2) and aluminium (Al2O3) with
55.46% and 20.77% composition respectively. An increase in SiO2
and Na2O was observed in GSF particles as compared to fly ash
(Table 1) due to the addition of the alkaline liquid. All other
components remained nearly same as that of fly ash.

Table 4
Compressive strength and standard deviation value for GFS and NRS mortar specimen.

Curing Days Compressive Strength in MPa Standard deviation

GFS-M NRS-M GFS-M NRS-M
3 days 8.2 11.07 0.58 0.6721
7 days 16.34 20.54 1.87 1.107
28 days 22.406 23.94 1.74 1.21
 U.S. Agrawal et al. / Construction and Building Materials 150 (2017) 681–688
Fig. 10. Compressive strength test results of GFS and NRS.
3.9. Compressive strength
The compressive strength of the GFS and NRS mortar was deter-
mined as per IS 2386 (Part VI): 1986 [45] by preparing three repli-
cate cubes of size 70.7  70.7 mm  70.7 mm and curing it for 3, 7
and 28 days .To prepare the mortar cubes, the GFS and NRS con-
firming to zone-I (Fig. 4) was mixed with cement and water with
w/c = 0.6 to achieve a flow of 100 ± 5 mm respectively. The com-
pressive strength test results of GFS and NRS are shown in
Fig. 10. From the figure it was observed that the 3 day and 7 day
strength of the GFS was less as compared to NRS, however it
achieved a compressive strength of 93.6% of NRS at 28 days
(GFS = 22.406 MPa, NRS = 23.94 MPa) (Table 4). It may be attribu-
ted to the unreacted fly ash particles present in the GFS as observed
in Fig. 9 which may have reacted with the cement hydration pro-
duct such as lime and may have contributed to the later strength.
The similar results were reported by Rao et al. [30]. They reported a
compressive strength of 11.6 MPa and 12.2 MPa for the fly ash
geopolymer mortar and the river sand mortar respectively at
28 days.
4. Conclusions
Geopolymer Fly ash sand (GFS) prepared by using 10 M NaOH
and Na2SiO3/NaOH ratio equal to two as geopolymer liquid solu-
tion and fly ash in proportion of 1:3 respectively had similar prop-
erties as that of natural river sand (NRS). While comparing the
properties of the GFS and NRS, they exhibited similar properties
in terms of specific gravity, particle size distribution and compres-
sive strength.
GFS particles achieved a specific gravity of 2.46 which was com-
parable with NRS (2.67), however they exhibited a higher specific
gravity than fly ash (2.12) due to the bonding provided by the Si-
O-Al-O units. The particle size distribution curve of GFS confirmed
to zone-I and the coefficient of curvature (Cc = 1.17) and coefficient
of uniformity (Cu = 4) classified it as poorly graded soil (SP). In
spite of GFS exhibiting higher pH value (12.2) and water absorption
(5.61%) as compared to NRS with 8.16 pH value and 0.82% water
absorption, the compressive strength properties of the mortar
bar at 28 days were not influenced, with GFS achieving 93.6% of
the 28 day compressive strength as that of NRS. GFS had a frictional
angle of 42°, whereas NRS exhibited a frictional angle of 38° indi-
cating GFS particle are angular and densely packed, which is essen-
tial for concrete purposes.
The durability tests on GFS such as soundness and alkali silica
reaction yield 6% weight loss and 0.06% expansion respectively
which was within the threshold limits as per the Indian standard
code thus indicating that GFS are resistant to weathering action
and alkali silica reaction.
The XRD and XRF results showed that the major minerals pre-
sent in GFS are quartz and mullite and the major components are
silicon and aluminium respectively. From the SEM image it was
687
observed that GFS particles contained unreacted fly ash particles
due to the incomplete dissolution of the fly ash particles during
synthesis, which may be responsible for the later strength develop-
ment, also some amount of porosity was observed on the particle
surface. With this study, it may be concluded that the GFS could
be used suitably as an alternative to NRS in construction activities.
Acknowledgement
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the
National Thermal Power Corporation Ltd. (NTPC) Raipur, India
(Reference No. 6.105). The experimental work was carried out in
the concrete technology laboratory of the Civil Engineering Depart-
ment at the Visvesaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur
The assistance of the laboratory staff is acknowledged here.
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