Infrastructure rehabilitation represents a multitrillion dollar opportunity for the construction
industry. Since the majority of the existent infrastructures are Portland cement concrete
based this means that concrete infrastructure rehabilitation is a hot issue to be dealt with.
Geopolymers are novel inorganic binders with high potential to replace Portland cement
based ones. So far very few studies in the geopolymer field have addressed the rehabilitation
of deteriorated concrete structures. This paper discloses results of an investigation
concerning the development geopolymeric repair mortars. The mortars are based on Tunisian
clay coming from Medenine region, plus calcium hydroxide, sodium silicate and sodium
hydroxide. Results show that the geopolymeric mortar has a high compressive strength and a
lower unrestrained shrinkage performance as long as partial replacement by metakaolin is
carried out. The results also show that Tunisian calcined clay based mortars have hydration
products with typical geopolymeric phases.