Comparative study on the environmental impact of Portland cement paste that mixed with naphthalene or carboxylate based polymer solutions

Abstract

The environmental impact is now a valuable coefficient for any human activity. The effect of solar UV radiation on the cement samples was limited and contained in the thin surface layer of the samples. In general, viscocrete was the most effective in protecting cement against solar ultraviolet radiation, where cement samples treated with the two polymers used separately showed greater compressive strength values than those recorded for samples treated with sikament polymer. This study is important since the mechanical properties of cement and concrete at early stages are important in the field of civil engineering. The effect of soaking in water on the ability of the cement to withstand the pressure on it was also studied, and several physical measurements were applied to samples of untreated cement and samples mixed with the mentioned polymers. These measurements included measuring the porosity, density, and total dissolved solids by X-ray diffraction, FTIR, and line scan EDX. These measurements were carried out on cement samples before, after, after soaking in water, as well as on cement samples mixed with polymers. The measurements were extended to the soaking water. So, adding two types of polymers (Sikament and Viscocrete) separately to cement could protect concrete constructions against serious environmental impacts. The EDX analysis of the samples used in this study showed that the Egyptian sources of raw materials used in the cement industry are rich sources of rare chemical elements. The importance of adding two types of polymers, Sikament and ViscoCrete, separately to cement protects concrete construction against environmental impacts, which is our main highlight, significance, and advice of this work. Decrease the water reduction percentage and increase the compressive strength for portend cement paste to 0.5 % viscocrete using 15 W and 30 W UV lamps, with a maximum value of 127.52 MPa for 0.5 % viscocrete at the 30 W lamp. Higher UV lamp exposure at 45-watt lamp decreases the compressive strength after exposure than others. The total porosity percentage of all used percentages of Sikament polymer addition is greater than that using viscocrete polymer with a 0.75 % Sikament high value of 7.60 (total porosity) TP%. The conductivity EC of the cement treated with polymer samples shows a smaller increase in the case of viscocrete polymer than that of Sikament, with a value of 404 uS using 0.5 % and 0.75 % viscocrete, which is supported by TdS measurements with values of 202 ppm for 0.5 % and 0.75 % viscocrete, respectively. The EDX results for cement polymer mixtures prove that both polymers used extract many elements from the cement paste and protect human beings from their dangers, like Sb, Na, Zr, Hf, Rb, Mo., Ti, P, Cu, Er, Cl, In, and Te,Te with greater efficiency for the Viscocrete polymer than the Sikament one. Many factors affecting the cement's compressive strength and mechanical properties are the innovation of this work, which deals with the impact of some materials affecting it. The main target is to discuss the effect of different polymers on some properties of cement paste. Other properties can be discussed in near future, like the void volume effect, packing density, Van der Waals volume, and apparent molar volumes. The polymer contents have the largest effect on increasing the compressive strength of cement paste, followed by the w/c ratio and curing time.