Correlation between Hardness and Water Absorption Properties of Saudi Kaolin and White Clay Geopolymer Coating

Geopolymer is an uprising technology that is being studied worldwide. Geopolymer raw materials are basically aluminosilicate source materials. However, this technology is yet to infiltrate into pipelines and coating industries which initiated our research idea. The idea of creating universal geopolymer based coating material is mainly to help oil and gas industry reduce its maintenance cost. Kaolin based geopolymer paste was coated on glass reinforced epoxy (GRE) substrates which are majorly used as pipeline material in the oil and gas industry at Saudi Arabia. Kaolin and white clay was chosen as raw material to study the possibilities of utilizing underused aluminosilicate raw materials for geopolymer coating. To obtain suitable formulation, Na2SiO3/NaOH ratio was varied from 0.40 untill 0.60 while other parameters such as solid/liquid ratio and NaOH molarity were kept constant at values as per previous works. Geopolymer coated GRE substrates were then subjected to water absorption, flexural strength and hardness test to validate our findings. Water absorption is a crucial test as for coating materials which justifies the pratical usability of the coating product. Upon testing, kaolin and white clay based geopolymer coating each shows promising properties at Na2SiO3/NaOH ratio of 0.45 and 0.50 each.