This study investigates the immobilization of Cd2+ and Cr3+ by using geopolymer paste based on PT. IPMOMI fly ash. The best composition of geopolimers paste was determined based on the highest magnitude of its 7 days compressive strength. Geopolymer pastes were prepared by varying SiO2/Al2O3 and Na2O/SiO2 molar ratio of the starting materials. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) were employed to examined these compositions. The molar ratio of SiO2/Al2O3 6.46 was found to produce the highest compressive strength of the resulting geopolymer paste, i.e 25 MPa and increased to 33.17 MPa by adjusting the ratio of Na2O/SiO2 to 0.65. Cd2+ and Cr3+ cations were added into geopolymers resin at the level of 1000 – 16000 ppm (mg/kg fly ash) and it was found to improve their compressive strength. The addition of 4000 ppm of Cd2+ increased the compressive strength to 38.6 MPa while the inclusion of 6800 ppm of Cr3+ reached 47.83 MPa. Further addition of cations reduced these values and the lowest compressive strength was observed on the addition of 16000 ppm of Cd2+ and Cr3+, i.e 8.65 MPa and 4.39 MPa, respectively. Leaching test was conducted by using Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and the distribution of heavy metal cations were examined by using SEM-EDX. The results showed that geopolymer pastes were able to immobilize Cr3+ at the studied level as there was no trace of Cr3+ detected after 6.5 hours of leaching. Geopolymer pastes were also found to completely immobilize Cd2+ at the level of 1000 ppm albeit the addition of 16000 ppm results in 6.26% leached out of this cation.

Immobilization of heavy metal ions using geopolymer paste is a promising way to solve the problem with heavy metal waste from industries. This research focused on the immobilization of Pb2+ and Cd2+ which are common heavy metal waste with distinctive cation size. The cations were immobilized by geopolymerization process to form geopolymer paste. The paste was prepared by using fly ash from a power plant in Cilacap, Indonesia, with SiO2/Al2O3 ratio = 3 and S/L = 1.6. According to XRF analysis, the ash is type C fly ash and additional Al(OH)3 was needed to achieve the SiO2/Al2O3 ratio. A solution of Cd2+ or Pb2+ from their respective nitrate salts was added to the geopolymer mixture to make an immobilized Cd2+ or Pb2+ in a fly ash geopolymer matrix. Compressive strength tests showed that the maximum strength was achieved when 3855 ppm of Cd2+ or 765 ppm of Pb2+ was added to the geopolymer mixture. The change of strength is explained to be caused by the filling of geopolymer cavities that were formed during the geopolymerization process. Due to the smaller size of Cd2+ than Pb2+, the strongest geopolymer paste was achieved at higher Cd2+ concentration than Pb2+. X-ray diffraction analyses results show that the addition of Cd2+ or Pb2+ shift the position on hump to larger 2θ.

In this study, the geopolymer from fly ash as based-raw material has been examined on the ability of several heavy metal ions immobilization. The fly ash has been provided from PT IPMOMI which firstly analyzed the physical and chemical properties. Fly ash and heavy metals were mixed with an activator base until homogeneous, then cast into a cylindrical shape mold following ASTM C 39-86 and left for 7 days. After that, the geopolymer was characterized by SEM, FTIR, XRD, compressive strength test and TCLP. The diffractogram of PT. IPMOMI fly ash exhibited the existence of mullite, alumina and iron oxide phase, which were suitable with XRF result. From FTIR spectra, the vibration on finger print area appeared indicating the vibration of T-O-T from geopolymer network. The observation revealed that the addition of Pb2+ cations caused microcracking from SEM image and affected the compressive strength of the geopolymer. Sr2+ was an ion that was very easilyleached compared to other three ions, and it caused a weak interaction between Sr2+ and geopolymer network. The higher amount of metal ions into the geopolymer network reduced the compressive strength of geopolymer. Sr2+-geopolymer had a lower compressive strength compared to Pb2+, Cd2+, and Co2+.