Oil and Organic Liquids Incorporation into Fresh Geopolymer Pastes Using Suitable Quaternary Ammonium Surfactants

Abstract

ance of chemical stabilization of many compounds and produces a mechanically stable form of waste. Unfortunately, the stabilization of organic liquids (OL) in Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) greatly retards and disrupts cement setting, and organic liquids generally form weak chemical bonds in cement unlike some inorganics 5,6) . Due to these disadvantages, geopolymers could be a solution to replace OPC for the incorporation of organic liquids and also for the treatment of OL waste.Since the resulting paste hardens to form a solid material (hardened GP) , mixing organic liquids (OL) with such aqueous suspensions 1, 2, 7, 8) has been recently described for the synthesis of porosity-controlled media, thermal insulating foams or filtration supports 9−13) and for the treatment of radioactive wastes 14,15) .In order to understand the immobilization of radioactive organic liquid wastes, alkanes 14,16) and paraffin oils 17) are used as model oils. The one-step incorporation process, which seems industrially more reasonable than the two-Abstract: The direct incorporation of low viscosity organic liquids (OL) such as dodecane and tributylphosphate (TBP) into fresh geopolymers (GP) is difficult and generally leads to variable amounts of un-incorporated OL remaining outside the hardened geopolymer. Experimentally, it is observed that a regular torque increase during OL incorporation corresponds to a suitable dispersion of the OL in the form of fine micrometric droplets. This can be obtained for TBP and dodecane by adding a small quantity of quaternary ammoniums salts (QAs) such as cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB). Shorter alkyl chains QAs, such as hexamethyltrimethylammonium (HMTA) can also be used but with a reduced efficiency. The positive impact of CTAB is then confirmed by the Washburn capillary rise method, showing that the interactions between TBP and CTAB-modified metakaolin are weaker compared to untreated powder. Finally, it is observed that the incorporation of TBP into geopolymer slurries is much easier than the incorporation of dodecane. The low interfacial tension measured between TBP and the activating solution (around 8 mN•m -1 ), contrasting with dodecane (29 mN•m -1 ), explains that the dispersion of TBP droplets in fresh metakaolin suspensions is more efficient.