Ali Allahverdi - Department of Chemical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran
Ebrahim Najafi Kani - Department of Chemical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran
Sara Esmaeilpoor - Department of Chemical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran

The use of alkali-activated cementitious materials especially over the past decades has significantly been increased not only due to their potential in reducing CO2 emission from manufacture of Portland cements, but also due to their superior engineering properties. The goal of this research is to investigate the possibility of utilizing blast-furnace slag of Isfahan steel plant in production of alkali-activated slag cement. The various tests and assessments performed in this research were aimed to study the most important physical characteristics of cementitious systems such as the 28-day compressive strength and final setting time by changing parameters such as silica modulus, i.e. SiO2/Na2O, (0.44, 0.52, 0.60, and 0.68) and Na2O percentage (4%, 6%, 8% and 10% by weight of dry binder) at constant water-to-dry binder ratio of 0.25. Final setting time of the systems studied varies in the range between 55 – 386 minutes. The results obtained show that systems cured at an atmosphere of more than 95% relative humidity at room temperature could exhibit relatively high 28-day compressive strengths up to almost 110 MPa. The systems exhibiting the highest 28-day compressive strengths were characterized by laboratory techniques of XRD and FTIR.

Alkali-activation, Blast-furnace Slag, Setting time, Compressive strength