Performance of Geopolymer Concrete Developed Using Waste Tire Rubber and Other Industrial Wastes: A Critical Review

The use of concrete as a construction material is one of the highest among other materials used throughout the world. Due to this, enormous demand for concrete exists and its constituents became very vital economically and technologically with respect to the growth of any nation. The primary binder material used in the concrete is cement, and the process of making cement plays a vital role in infrastructural growth. Cement production releases a vast amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing severe environmental health hazards like global warming and other issues allied to it. To control the cost of cement and to keep a tab on problems arising from its manufacturing, there is a need to find a substitute of cement so that this substitute can be used as a partial/complete replacement of cement in the manufacturing of concrete. Geopolymer concrete is one way to tackle this problem. Further, industrialization is established very rapidly in the last three decades, particularly in developing countries. Distinct industrial wastes are being generated from these industries leading to the problem of their disposal and various health and environmental concerns. The proper utilization of such wastes is the need of the present time. Extensive research has been carried out on developing the geopolymer concrete along with the use of different industrial wastes. Most of the studies on geopolymer concrete have given promising results for strengths and durability in comparison to conventional concrete. This work presents a detailed review of the studies based on the use of various industrial wastes, like fly ash, ground granulated blast furnace slag, metakaolin etc. along with the various alkaline activators for developing the geopolymer concrete to reduce cement footprint. A detailed review is reported considering the performance of the geopolymer concrete for different mechanical properties, its strengths and durability in comparison with the conventional concrete. It has been found that the enhancement in the strengths is observed for the geopolymer concrete as compared to the concrete prepared using cement. Furthermore, limitations in the manufacturing of the geopolymer concrete using these wastes are also discussed.