An Overview of Pumice Stone as a Cementitious Material – the Best Manual for Civil Engineer

Abstract

Pumice stone is a natural sponge-like lightweight aggregate formed during the rapid cooling and solidification of molten lava. After suitable preparation, it can be used as an aggregate to produce lightweight concrete or as a cementitious material to produce blended cement or geopolymer. This article focused on the influence of pumice powder (PP) on fresh properties and hardened properties of conventional cementitious materials and geopolymers. Additionally, different modification methods carried out to modify some properties of conventional cementitious materials containing PP have been included. This review showed that the incorporation of PP in the traditional cement matrix has some benefits such as increasing thermal and acoustic insulation, increasing fire resistance, increasing abrasion resistance, decreasing unit weight, decreasing hydration heat, decreasing drying shrinkage, decreasing autoclave expansion, increasing sulfate resistance, increasing seawater resistance, increasing acid resistance, increasing electrical resistivity, decreasing alkali silica reaction (ASR) expansion, decreasing porosity, water absorption and permeability. On the other hand, it has a negative effect on workability, mechanical strength and increasing carbonation rate. This review also confirmed that PP has a promising future in the field of alkali-activated and geopolymer materials.