Alkali-activated Cementitious Materials for Waste Treatment

Monday Uchenna Okoronkwo, Ph.D

Abstract

Due to the high CO₂ emissions associated with the production of conventional cements, research efforts have been directed towards developing alternative low-carbon cementitious materials. One widely researched alternative cementitious material, which has also found value in environmental remediation space, is alkali-activated cement or geopolymers. Although most of the work in our lab focuses on the chemistry of cementitious materials for construction applications, in this talk, I will mainly discuss our works related to the use of alkali-activated materials for aqueous heavy metal sorption, and solid waste immobilization. Specifically, I will show some of our experimental work on aqueous Pb and Zn removal using fly ash-based alkali-activated materials, and a thermodynamic-based simulation to assess alkali-activated material formulation for solidifying and stabilizing contaminants in solid wastes.

Biography

Dr. Monday U. Okoronkwo is an Assistant Professor in the chemical and biochemical engineering department at Missouri S&T. He obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Aberdeen, UK, in 2014. He completed his post-doctoral training at the University of California Los Angeles before joining S&T in 2018. He currently directs an interdisciplinary research group at S&T that engineers the chemistry of materials for sustainable infrastructure, energy, and environment. His research is well-supported by federal and state agencies, including the National Science Foundation. He has received several honors, including the College of Engineering and Computing Dean’s Research Scholar Award at Missouri S&T.

Virtual Presentation