Reduction of the Calcium Leaching Rate of Cement Paste by Addition of Silica Nanoparticles

By J. Gaitero, I. Campillo, A. Guerrero. 2008

516 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Calcium leaching is a degradation process that consists in the progressive dissolution of the cement paste as a consequence of the migration of the calcium ions to the aggressive solution. Although it is a well known phenomenon, a way of reducing it has not been found yet. The aim of this work is to prove how the addition of small amounts of silica nanoparticles to the cement paste can induce such reduction. The experimental results obtained have shown that nanosilica increases the strength of the cement paste about a 30% in cured samples and more than a 100% in the asymptotically leached ones. At the level of the structure of the C–S–H gel, silica nanoparticles increase the average length of the silicate chains and reduce their polymerization as calcium dissolves. An important decrease of the degradation in terms of porosity and amount of calcium lost has also been observed.

Subfields: Civil and Structural Engineering, Earth-Surface Processes

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d0fcccf9bc4d7ab2a25a389b5f571ea981bed1ae

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In Civil and Structural Engineering

In Earth-Surface Processes

Citations in the corpus

Enhancement of barrier properties of cement mortar with graphene nanoplatelet (2015, methodology): “[15] used nano-SiO2 to improve the resistance to calcium leaching of cement paste which can be attributed to the reduced porosity in the cement paste, increased length of the silicate chains and pozzolanic reaction of nano-SiO2.”
Use of nano-silica in cement based materials—A review (2015, background): “the average chain length of silicate chains (Gaitero et al., 2008; Porro et al., 2005).”
Nanotechnology in concrete – A review (2010, background): “5) has been found to improve concrete workability and strength [101,108,109], to increase resistance to water penetration [94], and to help control the leaching of calcium [110],”
SCC modification by use of amorphous nano-silica (2014, background): “Normally, the presence of significant amounts of Ca(OH)2 results in a lower chloride intrusion resistance and lower compressive strength [13].”
Comparative Study of the Effects of Microsilica and Nanosilica in Concrete (2010, background): “(1) report that high-stiffness C-S-H is more resistant to calcium leaching.”