High Volume Slag and Slag-Fly Ash Blended Cement Pastes Containing Nano Silica

Abstract

This paper presents the effect of nanosilica (NS) on compressive strength and microstructure of cement paste containing high volume slag and high volume slag-fly ash blend as partial replacement of ordinary Portland cement (OPC). Results show that high volume slag (HVS) cement paste containing 60% slag exhibited about 4% higher compressive strength than control cement paste, while the HVS cement paste containing 70% slag maintained the similar compressive strength to control cement paste. However, about 9% and 37% reduction in compressive strength in HVS cement pastes is observed due to use of 80% and 90% slag, respectively. The high volume slag-fly ash (HVSFA) cement pastes containing total slag and fly ash content of 60% exhibited about 5%-16% higher compressive strength than control cement paste. However, significant reduction in compressive strength is observed in higher slag-fly ash blends with increasing in fly ash contents. Results also show that the addition of 1-4% NS improves the compressive strength of HVS cement paste containing 70% slag by about 9-24%. However, at higher slag contents of 80% and 90% this improvement is even higher e.g. 11-29% and 17-41%, respectively. The NS addition also improves the compressive strength by about 1-59% and 5-21% in high volume slag-fly ash cement pastes containing 21% fly ash+49%slag and 24% fly ash+56%slag, respectively. The thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) results confirm the reduction of calcium hydroxide (CH) in HVS/HVSFA pastes containing NS indicating the formation of additional calcium silicate hydrate (CSH) gels in the system. By combining slag, fly ash and NS in high volumes e.g. 70-80%, the carbon footprint of cement paste is reduced by 66-76% while maintains the similar compressive strength of control cement paste. Keywords: high volume slag, nanosilica, compressive strength, TGA, high volume slag-fly ash blend, CO2 emission.