Characterization of Fly Ash Geopolymer Concrete with Glass Bubble for Thermal Insulation Application

This work has developed fly ash geopolymer concrete with glass bubble as thermal insulated material. The behavior of solid/hollow glass bubble within the building component such as geopolymer concrete has shown potential to be used in thermal insulation application. The characterization of the raw materials (fly ash and glass bubble) and geopolymer concrete with glass bubble was determined by using several methods such as chemical composition analysis, particle size analysis (PSA) and microstructure analysis. The characterization of raw materials fly ash, glass bubble shows the chemical composition of SiO2 and Al2O3 showed the most major oxides of fly ash whereas high content of SiO2, Na2O and ClO2 was presented in glass bubble. The particle size analysis shows the mean particle size (X50) of fly ash was 46.22 mu m while the mean particle size (X50) of glass bubble was 66.68 mu m. Microstructure analysis of raw fly ash can be seen to consist of a series of spherical vitreous particles of different sizes and the raw material glass bubble shows the closed spherical pores while the crushed sample is illustrated to prove the hollow microsphere of glass bubble. The characterization of fly ash based geopolymer concrete with glass bubble as thermal insulated material will improve the thermal comfort and reduce the energy consumption of building materials.