Chemistry and materials science of alkali-activated materials

Learning about the action of alkali on aluminosilicate materials (natural ones or proceeding from industrial activities) is an old ambition of the scientific community. A few of those challenges established by scientists in this field are raw materials, manipulation of reactions, properties of the precipitated products, and fields for the applications. The proper formulation of the activating solution and curing procedure is critical for the properties of the final product. In this direction this chapter covers and describes some of the accumulated knowledge on the reaction mechanisms conditioning the interaction between aluminosilicates and alkaline solutions. In addition, the role played by the different elements participating in the diverse and alternative chemical systems is reported. Finally, the available tools capable of representing accurate models describing the nanostructure of final products have been selected and presented.