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Abstract

Alkali-activated mortars (AAM) can be produced with self-curing (SC), which supplies internal moisture to accelerate alkaline-activation reactions. The aim of using SC is to make AAMs with an early-age strength without any additional curing energy consumption and higher CO2 emissions, and to obtain in-situ practical advantages that enable the large-scale application of AAMs. The previous study produced natural pozzolan-based AAMs by applying energy-intensive heat (HC), microwave (MWC), and hybrid (HC+MWC) curing. This study investigates alternative curing regimes that reduce production energy without compromising material properties. The impacts of air curing (AC), water curing (WC), and SC on the properties were investigated. PEG 400 was used as an SC agent. The key findings of the research can be summarized as follows: AC and SC were determined as alternative methods, whereas WC didn’t show a positive effect on the properties at either early or later periods. Increasing the curing period from 7 to 90 days greatly improves the properties. However, this increasing rate after 90 days was lower than in the early period. The properties after 28-day AC and SC met the values of HC and MWC. The highest compressive strength (19.20 MPa), flexural strength (3.35 MPa), ultrasound velocity (2.67 km/s), and unit weight (2.26 g/cm3) were obtained after 365-day SC.

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