Influence of Waste Coral Powder on the Properties of Alkali-Activated Slag Cement Prepared with Seawater
Publication: Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 36, Issue 7
Abstract
In this paper, alkali-activated materials (AAMs) were prepared combining waste coral powder (CP) and blast furnace slag (BFS) as precursors, artificial seawater and deionized water as mixing water, and blends of NaOH and sodium silicate solution as alkaline activators. The effect of CP and seawater on the fluidity, mechanical properties, and hydration was discussed. The experimental results showed that a 15% CP content effectively improved the fluidity of fresh paste while having little effect on compressive strength of the samples. Compared with deionized water, the use of seawater for sample preparation resulted in a reduction of the fluidity and mechanical properties of the samples. The pore structure could be refined by CP and seawater, but gel micropores increased significantly when the CP content reached 25%. The use of CP and seawater did not cause significant changes in the type of hydration products. Although the amount of hydration products in the early stages of the samples prepared with seawater was relatively low compared with those prepared with deionized water, it gradually surpassed that in samples prepared with deionized water with increasing curing time. Increasing the CP content led to a higher reaction degree, and a CP content of 25% resulted in a reaction degree of approximately 30%–50%, which was roughly twice that of a sample containing 5% CP. These findings have important implications for the development of sustainable construction materials for utilization in marine engineering.
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Data Availability Statement
All data, models, and code generated or used during the study appear in the published paper.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 52378280) and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (No. 2019A1515011981). The authors thank Jiawei Jiang from Shiyanjia Lab (www.shiyanjia.com) for the mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) test.
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Published In
Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering
Volume 36 • Issue 7 • July 2024
Copyright
© 2024 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 25, 2023
Accepted: Dec 28, 2023
Published online: Apr 25, 2024
Published in print: Jul 1, 2024
Discussion open until: Sep 25, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Alkalinity and acidity
- Chemical properties
- Chemistry
- Environmental engineering
- Hydration
- Laminating
- Material mechanics
- Material properties
- Materials engineering
- Materials processing
- Mechanical properties
- Sea water
- Waste management
- Water (by type)
- Water and water resources
- Water management
- Water sampling
- Water treatment
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