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Limestones are generally vulnerable to various weathering effects, hence, protection and consolidation of them is necessary. Locally available limestones of Northern Cyprus have been used in both historical buildings dated back to the 16th century for conservation applications and new buildings mostly as a cladding material. However, certain decay patterns exist on these stones. In the current study, the service life of Cyprus stones was inspected. Alkoxysilane-based consolidation and protection treatments were applied on new quarried stones to enhance the stone properties and aged stones to conserve and protect the architectural heritage. Service life assessment was performed by applying accelerated aging tests on both new and aged stones before and after treatments. The treatments improved the physical, mechanical and durability properties of the stones in terms of unchanging the water vapor diffusion resistance factor, decreasing the porosity and the water absorption ratio, increasing the ultrasound pulse velocity, the compressive and the flexural strengths, and improving the resistance of the stones against wetting-drying, freeze-thaw, salt crystallization and SO2 vapour effects. The combination of consolidation and protection treatment (K2) was more efficient on the properties of the stones compared to only protection treatment (K1) due to the better penetration capacity, higher decreasing ratio of the porosity, and higher improvement of the physical, mechanical and durability properties. The treatments also improved the properties of the aged stones; thus, it may be inferred that treatment would benefit the conservation of historical buildings.

The purpose of the current study is to investigate the possibility of volcanic Tuff of Earth of Datça (ED) in Turkey to be used as an aluminosilicate source in the production of a geopolymer foam for thermal insulation. An extensive evaluation of the effects of fine sand-to-pozzolan and Al powder-to-pozzolan ratios on the physical, mechanical, and thermal properties and morphology (porosity, average and maximum pore diameter, pore size distribution) of the pores were carried out. The sodium silicate and potassium hydroxide (12.5 M) solutions with an activator ratio of 2.5 were used as alkali activators and Al powder was used as a foaming agent. Research results reveal that Earth of Datça is a suitable precursor for the production of a geopolymer foam. Fine sand and aluminum powder contents are key factors on optimum foam structure. Addition of finely ground silica sand ensured the volumetric stability of the binder and prevented the collapse after swelling of the binder. The optimum Al powder-to-pozzolan ratio was determined as 0.5 % because it gives higher physical, mechanical and thermal properties due to the more homogenous microstructure with finer pore size, narrower pore size distribution and lower degree of interconnectivity between the pores. Research results also show that natural volcanic Tuff of Datça Peninsula as aluminosilicate source gives promising results in the field of producing highly porous geopolymers with low thermal conductivity (0.087-0.134 W/mK), high porosity (72.3-82.6 %) and an acceptable compressive strength (0.40-2.09 MPa). This study contributes to the literature that Earth of Datça-based geopolymer foam may function well as an insulation material for building enclosure.