Talk:Geopolymer

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This page refers to geopolymers as being Al-Si based, yet Davidovits refers to a form of limestone concrete based geopolymers used in the construction of the Egyptian pyramids. Surely the definition needs broadening. Jerrydsj (talk) 09:39, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I disagree - Davidovits also claims clay minerals, diamond, silicone rubber and a variety of other materials as being "geopolymers" in his recent book - but this definition is not commonly used in the broader research community. The work of Michel Barsoum at Drexel University on the limestone/pyramids side of things has shown little or no geopolymer-like (alkali aluminosilicate gel) character in the pyramid stones.Johnprovis (talk) 04:36, 26 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The "broader research community" mentioned by user Johnprovis is limited to alkali-cement people. They try to explain geopolymer structures and chemistry with their Portland cement chemistry background, which is wrong because they only focus on a limited field of applications. Actually, they represent only 1/3 of the "research community". This was exemplified at a recent workshop on geopolymerization held in the UK (dec. 2012). There were three groups: one on geopolymer resins and binders, one on geopolymer composites and one on geopolymer cement. Contrary to Johnprovis statement by which in my book "Geopolymer cChemistry and Applications" I claim "diamond "being a geopolymer, this is pure allegation . As for "silicone rubber", everybody may check that silicones belong to the category of "inorganic polymers", like geopolymers, by simply clicking on the category at the bottom of the main article. In my book it is found in Chapter 14 titled "Organo-mineral geopolymer". We are faced here with the famous dilemma by which one tries to define a glass that contains only 50% liquid: for pessimistic it is "half-empty", for optimistic it is "half-full". I belong to the optimistic category, to those who claim that organo-mineral polymers are inorganic polymers, i.e. orgno-mineral geopolymers. As for the analysis by Michel Barsoum and al. (see the reference nr.46 in the main article), Johnprovis forgot to mention that the team analyzed two types of stone: casing stone and core stone. The casing stones contain very high amount of silica-based geopolymer and other Silico-Mg-compounds, whereas the make up of the core stone is different, comprising an alumino-magnesio-silicate, i.e an hydrid geopolymer. Johnprovis mentioned my recent book "Geopolymer Chemistry and Applications" but forgot to precise that these analysis and the chemistry mechanism are well described in Section 17.3. This is also available at http://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/pyramids/pyramids-3-the-formula-the-invention-of-stone

Prof. Joseph Davidovits (talk) 13:51, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I was wrong about the diamond (and have edited the comment as such) - I evidently misremembered my reading of your book when I made that comment in 2010. Regarding silicones - the categories currently listed at the bottom of that article are: Cosmetics chemicals, Silicones, Thermosetting plastics, Siloxanes, Adhesives. This (correctly in my opinion) omits their description as an inorganic polymer. The text of that article says that silicones are inorganic-organic polymers - which is far more precise.Johnprovis (talk) 14:58, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

Hi - Davidovit's theory is that the geopolymers are used as a cementing phase to hold natural limestone together. The limestone actually has no chemical role in such cements. Ars27 (talk) 19:32, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

[ removed insulting comments by 184.45.20.31 dated 11:52, 4 January 2013 (UTC)] ···V ani s che nu「m/Talk」 15:51, 20 January 2013 (UTC)

Ignore the above comment. If you read any of the material on the subject or look at any of the patents for current work you will find Davidovitz continually cited. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.176.68.245 (talk) 13:54, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Question: would anyone else agree with me in suggesting that the section "Ionic coordination or covalent bonding ?" is unnecessary here, and is a diversion/confusion from the focus on geopolymers? I propose that this should be removed, anyone agree/disagree? Johnprovis (talk) 22:08, 11 June 2015 (UTC) --> ok, in the absence of any objections during the past 4 weeks, I will do this. Johnprovis (talk) 13:59, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Factual accuracy disputed
See User talk:Vanischenu (for future reference), the scientist, Sir Davidovits, himself has questioned the article content's accuracy. Here is the video on the same. Thank you! ···V ani s che nu「m/Talk」 16:26, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

I have been mandated by the "Geopolymer scientists community" to write a totally new article on "Geopolymers" that must replace the existing one, which is considered as being inaccurate. See the discussion at the last conference "Geopolymer Camp 2012", second video at http://www.geopolymer.org/camp/gp-camp-2012.

Review of User:JDavidovits/sandbox

Prof. Joseph Davidovits (talk) 07:22, 18 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Bear in mind there is a Wikipedia Manual of Style which should be adhered to. For example, the first few introductory paragraphs should summarise the topic (I notice you've begun by talking about polymers rather than geopolymers).
 * In addition you should try and avoid writing Wikipedia articles like an academic paper. They should be accessible to any reasonably intelligent person, without needing specialist knowledge. I'm sure someone from one of the associated WikiProjects will weigh-in to help improve the formatting. Sionk (talk) 16:07, 18 January 2013 (UTC)


 * OK Sionk. We'll do our best during this week-end. However, when I started to write this article I took a model in Wikipedia, namely the article 'Polymer'. I do not feel that our article on 'geopolymer' is more academic and I do not feel that the DNA molecule structure is simpler to understand by a layperson than our geopolymer structures.

Prof. Joseph Davidovits (talk) 16:21, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

Mackenzie specifically said it wasn't 5-coordinated
The MacKenzie 1985 paper (http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1151-2916.1985.tb15228.x), which is used here to highlight the importance of 5-coordinated Al in metakaolin, actually states exactly the opposite (quotes from the full text of that paper): - in the Abstract: A new model for metakaolinite is proposed, consisting of anhydrous regions of distorted Al-0 tetrahedra containing randomly distributed isolated residual hydroxyls associated with Al-0 configurations of regular octahedral and tetrahedpal symmetry. - p295-296 (journal page numbering): On mechanistic grounds the sites in metakaolinite ... must be 4-coordinated rather than 5-coordinated as in pyrophyllite (emphasis added)

The discussion of pentahedral aluminium in metakaolin came along later. Johnprovis (talk) 19:35, 12 June 2015 (UTC)


 * It was in another 1985 paper, the right reference is this one (http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00728065) TutoCX (talk)


 * It's not in that one either - quoting the conclusions section of that paper: "Approximately one-half of these well-defined aluminum sites are octahedral, one-quarter are tetrahedral, and the remainder are either tetrahedral, or some other regular site with a chemcial shift intermediate between tetrahedral and octahedral." - I don't see any specific mention of pentahedral? Johnprovis (talk) 18:34, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Edits and tidying Jan 2016
I have shifted the redundant geopolymer cement article into the corresponding section here, and had a shot at some tidying throughout the article. I still feel that the whole thing is of marginal quality and represents a single point of view among the very diverse community working in this area, with an excessive number of links to publications and presentations of the Geopolymer Institute. I have left these more or less as-is for the time being, but the article as it stands does not reflect the advances in technical and scientific understanding which have been made in the past decade or so, and relies more than would be desirable on un-refereed publications. I have also tagged up various statements which need to be verified. Further input from anyone interested (and with the time to do this) would be highly desirable at this point, I think.Johnprovis (talk) 09:55, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Stop denigrating geopolymer !
Several Geopolymer Institute members discovered only recently the vandalistic action carried out by User Johnprovis since June 09, 2015 on the Geopolymer article. Consequently, we reverted the current issue to the last revision by Leyo dated of January 29, 2015.

We have purposefully decided to refrain from acting sooner in order to observe John Provis’ behavior until he has completely disclosed his hidden motive. Why ? I explain it now:

The renown institution, Engineering Conferences International ECI had organized a conference named GEOPOLYMERS, May 24-29, 2015, at Schloss Herrnstein, Herrnstein, Austria. (http://www.engconf.org/past-conferences/2015-conferences/geopolymers/ ). I had been asked by the conference chair and the co-chairs to present the Opening Plenary Speech, titled: The development of geopolymer science and technologies, scheduled for May 24 evening. There were 75 attendees including John Provis. Complying with the rules of this type of conferences, my presentation was not recorded and there is no transcript. I essentially directed my talk towards those scientists who are deliberately interchanging the notion of geopolymer into the one of alkali-activated materials AAM, claiming geopolymer being a subset of a low-tech construction material. I totally disagree and presented in my talk my concerns towards the evolution taken by John Provis in his duty as President of the RILEM Committee, Alkali-Activated-Materials, and his effort to denigrate the geopolymer concept, science and technology. The Introduction of the State of the Art Report, RILEM TC 224-AAM, STAR 224-AAM Alkali Activated Materials (2014) written by John Provis contains following sentences in the Section: 1.4 Notes on terminology (page 7), I quote: "....it should be noted that the Technical Committee is not necessarily in complete agreement regarding all the points raised here...." In other words, contrary to his pedantic claim, he only represents a single point of view. I continue my quotation from RILEM Report: "... In the context of this Report, the terms 'alkali-activated materials (AAM)' and 'geopolymer' are at least worthy of some comment... It is also noted that the term 'geopolymer' is also used by some workers, both academic and commercial, in a much broader sense than this [than just construction material, cement, concrete]; this is often done for marketing (rather than scientific) purposes..."

In other words, according to John Provis, the concept of geopolymer is a marketing tool, nothing else.

At this point, it is time to present some numbers. Provis states that J. Davidovits' work is "of marginal quality and represents a single point of view among the very diverse community working in this area". In the listing provided by Google Scholar on the date of February 8, 2016, the reference article by J. Davidovits "Geopolymer" is cited 1515 times by other scientists. As a comparison, the best article where John Provis is the sole author or first author, gets only 248 citations. Who is representing a single view?

Since 2014, in two public keynotes, I have pointed out this disarray by explaining to the scientific community why alkali-activated materials are not to be mistaken with geopolymer cement; these two concepts are not synonyms. See videos at the Geopolymer Institute website http://www.geopolymer.org/faq/alkali-activated-materials-geopolymers/ and on Youtube. More evidently, alkali-activated-materials cannot be confused with high-tech geopolymer/carbon fiber composites, heat and fire resistant resins, paints, coatings, high-temperature ceramics, and many more manufactured technologies thanks to geopolymer chemistry. Consequently, stopping what John Provis is willing to promote with the help of a few of his colleagues remains our prime concern.

Two weeks after his return from the Geopolymers conference in Austria, John Provis started his misleading conduct by editing the article on June 09, 2015 (see the listing in History). From June 09, 2015 on, till January 17, 2016, he has edited the text 25 times, taking out anything related to the polymeric notion of geopolymer and the various applications, with the target to transform it into a simple cement, or better in his mind into simple alkali-activated materials. He has done it step by step, and since we where not reacting, he continued his destruction work. His first revision from June 09 was reverted by RR420 so that on June 10 he mentioned in his second revision: " Clean up - don't revert this time please, it's not vandalism!). In fact, after 25 revisions, he had changed the essence of the article, merged the separate article "Geopolymer Cement" and triumphant stated on January 17: "Geopolymer cements: replaced section with text of 'Geopolymer cements' article and redirected that page to here, to remove wholesale duplication of content. Still needs a lot of tidying, though." [meaning removing all non-cement and polymer science references and shifting the whole into an alkali-activated article].

To all future editors: bear in mind that this is not an ordinary intellectual disagreement. It is an attempt to reduce a well-known and recognized relatively young polymer science branch, now taught at universities and used by various industries, into an alternative word to promote its limited low-tech cement alternative (also known as Alkali-Activated Materials or AAM).

Considering his ambiguous behavior by editing 25 times within 6 months and announcing on January 17, 2016 "... still need a lot of tidying ...", he diverted the content of the original "Geopolymer" article into "Geopolymer cement", to serve his own scheme: absorbing and high jacking the geopolymer technology as a subset of his alkali-activated-materials, according to the RILEM Report. You will agree this is pure vandalism and a shocking anti-scientific conduct from a Professor of Cement Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Sheffield, UK.

For several years, we thought that this disarray in the community by which geopolymer at large was a synonym for alkali-activated materials was a matter of misunderstandings, or an over simplification of a polymer chemistry by some civil engineers. In fact, we were surprised to discover that it was a deliberate attempt done by a small and yet defined group of people to use the word "geopolymer" as a cool marketing wording without any consideration for the real chemistry behind it. With all the evidences gathered now, some members of the Geopolymer Institute are thoroughly thinking of any legal complaint and will definitely inform their peers about this situation.

The original text represents our knowledge dating back to 2012. We shall update the new current article with any new scientific data acquired since that date. Please, be patient. Prof. Joseph Davidovits (talk) 10:35, 12 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Do not ask Wikipedians to "be patient" when you are making legal threats. Wikipedia has no patience with legal threats.  You have a right to make legal threats.  You have a right to pursue legal action.  However, legal action will ultimately be judged by United States courts.  Since United States courts very seldom decide scientific disputes, you would do well to present a better case for a legal remedy than you have done here.  You do not have a right to edit Wikipedia.  Nearly everyone has been granted the privilege to edit Wikipedia.  No one has the privilege to edit Wikipedia while they are also threatening legal action in Wikipedia.  See the legal threats policy, which states that legal threats will result in a block.  Either strike the legal threat and request that an administrator redact it, or expect a quick indefinite block.  Robert McClenon (talk) 00:13, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
 * You write "We shall update the new current article with any new scientific data acquired since [2012]." Who is "we"?  You appear to be claiming that a group to which you belong, maybe the Geopolymer Institute, has ownership of the article.  No editor or group has the privilege to claim ownership of an article.  Robert McClenon (talk) 00:13, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
 * You refer to "vandalistic action". A content dispute is not vandalistic action.  No Wikipedia editor has the privilege to label a content dispute as vandalism.  To do so, in the absence of evidence that the objective was malicious or to damage Wikipedia (and it was not) is a personal attack.  Robert McClenon (talk) 00:13, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Either strike the legal threat, or await the block. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:13, 15 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Blocked he got. 86.153.133.193 (talk) 17:47, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

Partial response to Joseph Davidovits, and request for correct dispute resolution protocol
Joseph - I have undone your wholesale reversion of an entire year's editing of this article by a number of people (including, but by no means limited to, myself), which also involved the cleanup of a lot of grammatical errors and mistakes in citation. If you want to disagree with the edits of anyone else, that is your prerogative, but please do it selectively rather than taking the nuclear option, and first familiarise yourself with the principles of Wikipedia, including the following: No_personal_attacks Ownership_of_content Edit_warring

We have had this debate in public and in person regarding your opinions of the term 'geopolymer' and its disconnect from any areas of modern cement science, and I don't wish to retread that history in writing here, other than to note that after the talk you gave in Austria on this topic, which included repeated personal attacks on myself and other prominent researchers which were completely inappropriate for a scientific conference (and are equally inappropriate here), several prominent colleagues who had heard your presentation sought me out afterwards to apologise on behalf of the community for your shameful and disgraceful behaviour (their words not mine).

Let me reiterate my position - not a single cent/penny/other unit of currency of my income relies on the use, or otherwise, of the term 'geopolymer'. As I pointed out in my own presentation in the conference in Austria, the reaction between alkalis and aluminosilicates existed long before you invented this word, and will continue to exist long afterwards. You cannot just rename and reshape an entire field of science and engineering because you don't like the descriptive terms others use. I am not trying to denigrate the concept, the existence or the value of geopolymers - I have built my career working in this research field - but rather am trying to describe this class of materials in a way which is logical and clear to the general scientific and technical community.

Regarding academic credentials - my activity in the area is shown in my Google Scholar page at https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=FnKgVdUAAAAJ&hl=en and we can let colleagues decide regarding whether I can be considered an active researcher and/or a reliable source.

I am not committing vandalism on the article at all, and would appreciate it if you were to edit with care and following the correct protocols. You will note that in my editing, I did not actually wholesale delete your content (regardless of whether I agree with many parts of it), and I would very much appreciate it if you were to respect the contributions of others as we do with your contributions. However, it is obvious that the two of us are not going to agree on this, so I am lodging a request for a Dispute resolution to adjudicate on this. Johnprovis (talk) 09:03, 13 February 2016 (UTC)


 * update - for what it's worth, dispute resolution request is now at Dispute_resolution_noticeboard — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnprovis (talk • contribs) 09:05, 13 February 2016 (UTC)


 * It was briefly at the dispute resolution noticeboard. The discussion here was inadequate, consisting only of one overly long post by each editor, so that dispute resolution was declined.  Also, legal threats are both inconsistent with dispute resolution and inconsistent with editing of Wikipedia.  Robert McClenon (talk) 00:18, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

Content Dispute
A request was made for the dispute resolution noticeboard for moderated dispute resolution. I have declined the request for various reasons and am cautioning both of the parties. First, there was inadequate discussion at this talk page. Each editor had made one recent post, both of which were too long, didn't read. However, there has been considerable incivility. One of the editors has accused the other editor of vandalism, and should know that their edits do not constitute vandalism, but that they are merely yelling "Vandalism!" to "win" a content dispute. If they don't know that the edits are not vandalism, they should know it, and that the false claim of vandalism is a personal attack, and a serious personal attack. Both of you!! Discuss a few more days on this talk page. If that fails, you may try formal mediation, where the mediator has more knowledge of how to deal with editors who yell "Vandalism!". If you really think that there is vandalism, report it at WP:AIV and get told that it isn't vandalism. If all else fails, and there continue to be personal attacks, you can try WP:ANI, but no one wins at WP:ANI. Try discussion, and do not yell vandalism when there is no vandalism. Robert McClenon (talk) 22:09, 13 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Ok, thanks Robert for looking into it, and apologies for being premature in filing the request. I was trying to avoid rehashing the past decade of debate between Joseph and I into this forum, but will progressively do so as/when available time arises. Joseph's opinions of me are well-documented via the video diatribes on his personal website, to which I hadn't yet bothered to reply in written form, although if he is now going to start making vague threats of legal action, it seems I may have no choice... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnprovis (talk • contribs) 09:13, 14 February 2016 (UTC)


 * On Wikipedia, legal threats are absolutely forbidden, and will result in an indefinite block. If article content cannot be discussed without legal threats, it cannot be discussed on Wikipedia, and should be taken elsewhere.  See the legal threats policy.  If there is a decade of bad blood between two scientists, then it is probably better to discuss this in scientific journals than on Wikipedia.  Robert McClenon (talk) 09:27, 14 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I had hoped that was the case regarding legal issues - see comment above from JDavidovits, post of 12 Feb: ″With all the evidences gathered now, some members of the Geopolymer Institute are thoroughly thinking of any legal complaint and will definitely inform their peers about this situation″. The debate is ongoing in the scientific literature as well, but this leaves us with the open question of how to resolve things here. I'll aim to limit my input to this Talk page rather than editing the article for the immediate future if JDavidovits is willing to do likewise? Johnprovis (talk) 10:46, 14 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Our manner of dealing with disputes of this sort is to try to combines as much material as possible into uncontroversial sections, and then present the various parts of the article giving the alternative views with respect to each of them. The relative amount of space devoted to each view is generally proportionate to the extent of acceptance as measured by coverage by the literature. All material must be based on references to reliable sources. If the details are in dispute, the references should be to individual sentences, which we call inline references.  Reliable sources are defined in WP:RS; to summarize: We generally strongly prefer comprehensive treatment in books and review articles  to discussions in individual scientific papers, unless it is necessary to document a particular fact. In a case like this, where at least one   of the parties has published books representing their POV, it  may be necessary to show by references how well accepted the book is in the scientific community. In most fields of science and technology, with the exception of electronics & computer science & related subjects, papers presented at scientific conferences are not as reliable as papers published in journals. Papers published only in abstract are not reliable sources. Unrefereed technical reports are good only for uncontroversial material. Patents are considered claims only. Articles in technical journals are not of very great significance, unless they are actually critical reviews.  DGG ( talk ) 01:59, 18 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your explanation of how to deal with content disputes and of issues about reliable sources. However, there doesn't appear to be an active content dispute any more.  The content dispute was between two scientists who have a history of animosity.  However, as you can see, one of them threatened legal action and has been indefinitely blocked.  The next step might be to invite other editors at the appropriate WikiProjects.  Robert McClenon (talk) 16:44, 18 February 2016 (UTC)


 * that does not mean that his view should not be represented.  DGG ( talk ) 18:47, 18 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree. That means that some neutral editor or editor who supports his position needs to state it.  Robert McClenon (talk) 19:26, 18 February 2016 (UTC)

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What the ? Why isn't "normal" cement and concrete on this page (it is also an "alkali-activated material")
I came here wanting to learn more because a "geopolymer" has won an award at COP 26. I've ended up not understanding a darned thing. My first question is why this is not merged with geopolymer cements? My second is this: from the definition set out in the intro, the term seems to me to apply to "normal" concrete too. So what is it that sets this apart from "normal concrete" when water and wotnot is added to cause the reaction to start?

Beyond these two concerns, also I came across this paper (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328462723_Alkali_activated_materials_review_of_current_problems_and_possible_solutions) and yet no mention is being made of peer review of the downsides of "geopolymers" when it seems EXTREMELY strong NaOH is needed. What are the energy requirements? This is important because yes, I understand that no CO2 is released during manufacture, but by the same token if we hare having to deploy a lot of (say) electrical energy to synthesize the raw materials, then of course if the electricity is "dirty" then we're at a situation whereby CO2 is released during manufacture.

And again I find myself utter confused as to why this is characterised as (say) "Alkali activated material" (with reference to the title of the pdf linked above) when "normal" cement is also "activated", this time by CaOH, which is also alkali.

This entire subject is a mess and it seems to me anything which has a caustic agent thrown at it and then gets some sense of hardening effect gets to qualify. That means "normal" cement too, i.e that makes "normal" concrete?

(I'm posting this on the geopolymer cement page too). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.68.0.41 (talk) 16:57, 1 December 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree that it should be merged with the Geopolymer article - as you can see from the discussion above, I tried to do this a couple of years ago and it was reverted. Speaking as a specialist in this field (I've worked in research on this and related topics for ~20 years), both this and that article are far below the quality merited by Wikipedia, but my attempts to fix one or both were essentially binned. Both need a complete rewrite, probably from a near-blank slate - but I've been told that I'm too close to the topic to be allowed to do this under CoI rules.


 * Regarding the downsides you mention:
 * 1. Most plausible geopolymer mixes don't use high concentrations of NaOH as such. Realistically, they use sodium silicate or potassium silicate, which are at pH values similar to that of conventional Portland cement.
 * 2. Very true about the emissions footprint of electricity production, this can bring a significant environmental footprint to the activator component. However, even with this fully included in the LCA calculations it usually still comes out ahead of Portland cement, unless exceedingly dirty electricity sources are chosen. This is very regionally-dependent.


 * On your question about activation and Portland cement - the distinction that's normally drawn is that the calcium hydroxide which raises the pH in conventional cements is formed via reactions of the cement powder which is just mixed with water, whereas alkali-activation (including to make geopolymers) uses a separately-dosed source of alkalis to trigger the reaction of something that wouldn't ordinarily react with water in a useful way. There are moves to production of one-part (just-add-water) geopolymer powders which would blur this distinction somewhat, but I think the idea is fundamentally fairly useful. Johnprovis (talk) 15:20, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

Factual accuracy
I tagged the article for factual accuracy based on the above (old) talk page discussions and this current ongoing discussion over at WP:FTN. Hopefully, this can be straightened out over time. ---Steve Quinn (talk) 01:30, 1 April 2024 (UTC)