Eco-friendly paving blocks from alkali-activation of basalt powder

The main aim of the research is to investigate the waste by-products as a sustainable construction material by means of Alkali-activation processes. Nowadays, cement is one of the most significant factors of climate change and global warming. It accounts for 5% to 8% of total emission, which may increase due to the increase in concrete production. In this process, sustainable and eco-products have been chosen. Basalt and metakaolin were chosen as precursors. In this, basalt is the main component of our research. Basalt is an igneous rock formed by the rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet and it is the most common rock in the earth’s crust and metakaolin is the anhydrous calcined form of the clay mineral kaolinite also the particle size of metakaolin is smaller than cement particles. In this experimentation, there are two activators sodium silicate and sodium hydroxide. These two activators added into precursors in certain proportions and mixed using a cement rotator. After that, this mixture is distributed into cube blocks and leave for a few minutes before packing with a plastic cover. Proceeding into a curing process, these cube blocks placed in the oven at certain temperatures between 60 to 80 degrees. These types of precursors and activators are added in different ratios using this procedure to make a cube sample following by the curing process of 28 days. These were tested in compressive strength machine to obtain load resistance results. Basalt has better chemical resistance to the extended operating temperature range and environmentally friendly material. Metakaolin is eco-friendly by reducing the amount of 〖co〗_2 emission and the heat of hydration leading to shrinkage and crack control. With the obtained synthetic mixtures, some special paving blocks were produced. Following the EN 1338 standard, these were tested in different to fully characterize the final product.