Customized price-quality microcrystalline cellulose for developing cementitious composites with improved mechanical properties

Abstract

The first attempt to synergistically apply different surface treatments made it possible to use a customized price-quality commercial microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) as a mineral admixture to improve the mechanical performance of a cementitious composite. The MCC was pretreated with the silane-based surface modifier tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS) and dispersed in an aqueous suspension using Pluronic F127 under ultrasonic energy. The improvement results were similar to those already reported in a state-of-the-art review of studies that used costly and better quality MCC, still achieving greater fracture energies. The concomitant use of TMCC + Pluronic F127 required a small amount of superplasticizer.