Abstract

The high CO₂ emissions of ordinary Portland cement (OPC) production have led to increasing the efforts on developing eco-efficient alternative binders. Geopolymers are inorganic binders proposed as an alternative to OPC, which are mainly based on aluminosilicate by-products and alkali activators. Higher utilization of industrial waste materials, such as ceramic manufacturing waste, could be enabled by geopolymers. In ceramic industry, around 30% of raw materials end up in waste streams, and therefore, an attempt is made to recycle these materials. The ceramic wastes are rich in silicate and aluminate and have therefore high potential to be used in the geopolymeric concrete. In the present paper, the porcelain ceramic waste was used as 10% of total binder weight in substituting ground-granulated blast-furnace slag (GGBFS). The results showed that the resulting binders have comparatively high compressive strength (≥60 MPa) and show brittle behavior, which is typical to inorganic binders with no fiber reinforcement. Microsteel fibers were used to improve the flexural performance of these binders at three different fibers by mass of binder (0.5%, 1%, and 1.5%). After curing, mechanical performances were investigated by measuring the compressive and flexural strength. The results showed that the addition of steel fibers significantly improved the flexural behavior. In addition, it was revealed that these fiber-reinforced binders had a deflection hardening behavior due to the bridging action of steel fibers.