This paper deals with the complete technology of inorganic geopolymer binder system GEOPOL® which is a result of long term research and development. The objective of this paper is to provide a theoretical and practical overview of the GEOPOL® binder system and introduce possible ways of moulds and cores production in foundries. GEOPOL® is a unique inorganic binder system, which is needed and welcomed in terms of the environment, the work environment, and the sustainable resources. The GEOPOL® technology is currently used in the foundries for three basic production processes/technologies: (1) for self-hardening moulding mixtures, (2) sand mixtures hardened by gaseous carbon dioxide and (3) the hot box technology with hot air hardening. The GEOPOL® technology not only solves the binder system and the ways of hardening, but also deals with the entire foundry production process. Low emissions produced during mixing of sand, moulding, handling, and pouring bring a relatively significant improvement of work conditions in foundries (no VOCs). A high percentage of the reclaim sand can be used again for the preparation of the moulding mixture.

The article deals with the gas development of the geopolymer binder system hardened by heat and provides the comparison with organic binder systems. The GEOPOL® W technology is completely inorganic binder system, based on water. This fact allow that the gas generated during pouring is based on water vapour only. No dangerous emissions, fumes or unpleasant odours are developed. The calculated amount of water vapour generated from GEOPOL® W sand mixture is 1.9 cm3/g. The measured volume of gas for GEOPOL® W is 4.3 cm3/g. The measurement of gas evolution proves that the inorganic binder system GEOPOL® W generates very low volume of gas (water vapour) in comparison with PUR cold box amine and Croning. The amount of gas is several times lower than PUR cold box amine (3.7x) and Croning (4.2x). The experiment results are consistent with the literature sources. The difference between the calculated and the measured gas volume is justified by the reverse moisture absorption from the air after dehydration during storing and preparing the sand samples. Minimal generated volumes of gas/water vapour brings, mainly as was stated no dangerous emissions, also the following advantages: minimal risk of bubble defects creation, the good castings without defects, reduced costs for exhaust air treatment, no condensates on dies, reduced costs for cleaning.

In the present work, we performed the ultra-rapid annealing (URA) process for amorphous Fe78Ni8B14 melt-spun ribbons in order to obtain fine excellent microstructure assuring the best soft magnetic properties. Several microscopic methods mainly based on transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and Lorentz TEM (L-TEM) were applied for detailed studies of the microstructure and magnetic domains structure. The investigation revealed that the optimized parameters of the URA process (500°C/0.5-5 s) lead to outstanding soft magnetic properties. A mixture containing close to 50% amorphous phase and 50% α-Fe nanocrystals of size up to 30 nm has been already obtained after annealing for 3 s. These annealing conditions appear to be the most suitable in terms of microstructure providing the best magnetic properties.