Towards sustainable and carbon free concrete construction

Concrete is the most used building material. Mainly Portland cement is used for binding the aggregate. Manufacturing of cement is energy intensive and carbon-dioxide producing process. Lately the Alkali-Activated Materials (AAM), also known as geopolymers, raised some hopes for more energy saving and ecological concrete production. Even though the strength of the AAM concrete is comparable to ordinary Portland cement concrete, due to its reduced ductility it cannot be used in load-carrying structures. In this research new AAM concrete mixes are developed having both strength and ductility properties comparable to ordinary Portland cement concrete. To study the strength, ductility, and fatigue properties both experimental and theoretical-computational methods are used. If the Portland cement can be replaced by AAM binders in the load-carrying structures, it will result in significant decrease of energy consumption and production of greenhouse gases.