Geopolymeric products range from advanced materials to simple, yet highly sophisticated cements. The geopolymeric cements are made with inorganic chemical reactions in which alumina and silica materials are integrated to form synthetic s, secondary rock-forming minerals.

How should we consider geopolymers? ...a new material, a new binder or a new cement for concrete? Geopolymers are all of these. They are new materials for coatings and adhesives, new binders for fiber composites, waste encapsulation and new cement for concrete. The properties and uses are being explored in... inorganic... physical... [and] colloid chemistr[ies], mineralogy, geology, and... engineering process technologies. The ...potential applications... fire resistant materials, decorative stone artifacts, thermal insulation, low-tech building materials, low energy ceramic tiles, refractory items, thermal shock refractories, foundry applications, cements and concretes, composites for infrastructures repair and strengthening, composites for infrastructure repair and strengthening, high-tech composites for aircraft interior and automobile, high-tech resin systems, radioactive and toxic waste containment, arts and decoration... archaeology and history of sciences.

Geopolymers are revolutionary for the concrete industry. Any type of rock aggregate can be used, and concrete made with geopolymeric binder is practically indistinguishable from natural stone. ...This is unprecedented technology; no tremendous heat or pressure is required... Geopolymeric concrete sets rapidly at room temperatures to form synthetic stone, beautiful in appearance and abundant with unprecedented properties.

In my pursuit to develop new inorganic polymer materials, I was struck by the fact that the same simple hydrothermal conditions governed the synthesis of some organic plastics in alkali medium, as well as s and s. Thus and polycondense into... ... On the other hand, the reacts with NaOH at 100-150°C and polycondenses into hydrated ... or hydroxysodalite... I proceeded... to develop amorphous to semi-crystalline three-dimensional silico-aluminate [-Si-O-Al-O-] materials, which I call... s (mineral polymers resulting from or geosynthesis).

I am a research scientist specializing in low-temperature mineral synthesis. In 1972 I founded the private research company CORDI (Coordination and Development of Innovation), and, in 1979, the Geopolymer Institute, both in France. At the Geopolymer Institute a new branch of chemistry that I named ization. I currently have more than twenty-five international patents for geopolymeric products and processes. My products are made... by large manufacturers. The products have many diverse applications.

[G]eopolymeric cements are chemically comparable to the natural cements that bind such stones as , puddingstone, and fossil-shell .

Advanced technology plays no part in the production of s. ...An individual of the could produce geopolymers... [with] the knowledge that comes from intelligent, repeated observation and experimentation with substances found...

In... 1983, with Joseph Sawyer as head of Lone Star's research laboratory... I started to develop early high-strength geopolymeric binders and cements based on based on both geopolymeric and hydraulic cement chemistries. Within one month Lone Star Industries Inc. formed the development company, PYRAMENT... exclusively dedicated to... this new class of cement. ...It was discovered that the addition of ground blast furnace slag, which is a latent hydraulic cementitious product, to the poly(sialate) type of geopolymer, accelerates the setting time and... improves compressive and flexural strength. The first Davidovits and Sawyer patent was filed in... 1984... The corresponding European patent... in 1985... and these... disclose our preliminary finding...of 1983. Geopolymer cements are acid-resistant cementitious materials with zeolitic properties that can be applied to long-term containment of hazardous and toxic wastes.

In 1975-1976, when I first presented the concept of mineral polymer, scientists who could not imagine that polymers existed outside... of organic polymers very often fustigated my research and new terminology.

[T]he real breakthrough took place when, in 1978-1980, we developed... a -based geopolymeric liquid binder comprising soluble alkali-silicate... the first mineral resin ever manufactured. ...The commercial product ...Geopolymite^TM, was a good fire resistant alternative to organic resin.

We already have a strong mining industry and by building on this foundation, we can lead the way in producing green materials that are in high demand worldwide. The government and Ministry of Mines and Energy, in particular, need to ensure that our laws and policies support the growth of these new industries

Techniques are performed upon raw materials. The state of art of analyzing the characteristics of the raw materials is likely to determine what kind of technology will be used. (Tools are also necessary, of course, but by and large, the construction of tools is a simpler problem than the analysis of the nature of the material and generally follows the analysis.) To understand the nature of the material means to be able to control it better and achieve predictability and efficiency in transformation. We are not referring here to the 'essence of the material, only the way the organization perceives it to be ... The other relevant characteristic of the raw material, besides the understandability of Its nature, is Its stability and variability; that is, whether the material can be treated in a standardized fashion or whether continual adjustment to it is necessary. Organizations uniformly seek to standardize their raw material In order to minimize exceptional situations. This is the point of de-individualizing processes found in military academies, monasteries and prisons, and the superiority of the synthetic shoe material Corfam over leather.

As mineralogy constitutes a part of chemistry, it is clear that this arrangement [of minerals] must derive its principles from chemistry. The most perfect mode of arrangement would certainly be to allow bodies to follow each other according to the order of their electro-chemical properties, from the most electro-negative, oxygen, to the most electro-positive, potassium; and to place every compound body according to its most electro-positive ingredient.

Major efforts were dedicated to greenhouse CO2 mitigation with the development of low CO2 geopolymer cements. My research... started in 1990 at Penn-State University... The production of 1 tonne of kaolin based-geopolymeric cement generates 0.180 tonnes of CO2, from combustion carbon-fuel, compared with... Portland cement... six times less. Fly ash based-geopolymeric cement... up to nine times less than Portland...