**2.1 Chemicals and materials**

During the manufacture of Iron and Chrome alloy, slags are produced in smelter by the reaction of fluxing agents such as quartzite, bauxite, dolomite, corundum, lime and olivine with gangue materials of the ore. Usually, the foam slag in the smelting furnace contains 1.0–6.0 Cr depending on the charge at the reaction temperature.

In the present investigation, a HCFC slag from ferrochrome industry (**Shyam ferroalloys** Durgapur, West Bengal, India) is collected and composition is shown in **Table 1**. Other ingredients used are sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium silicate (Na2SiO3), which are procured from M/S Loba Chemicals, India and Merck, India, respectively. These reagents are used for treating HCFC slag. NaOH acts as an activator and Na2SiO3 act as a polymerization agent. Water soluble plasticizer (SiKA) is used in the processing of Geopolymer which acts as a plasticizers *i.e.,* an agent for enhancing plasticity of the product (Geopolymer). The SiKA chemical is procured from a reputed firm located in the southern parts of India (Visakhapatnam market). All relevant details such as image, color, density, supplier name of raw materials used for preparing GP are described in **Table 2**.

## *2.1.1 Alkaline liquid*

A combination of sodium silicate solution and sodium hydroxide solution are chosen as the alkaline liquid because they are cheaper [17–20].


#### **Table 1.**

*Chemical composition (%) of HCFC slag (XRF analysis).*

*Synthesis and Characterizations of High Carbon Ferrochrome (HCFC) Slag Based Geopolymer DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.97140*


#### **Table 2.**

*Ingredients sample image, color, density, supplier of HCFC slag.*
