The influences of admixtures on the dispersion, workability, and strength of carbon nanotube-OPC paste mixtures

By F. Collins, John D. Lambert, Wenhui Duan. 2012

489 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Carbon nanotubes (CNT) have excellent mechanical properties and have the potential, if combined with Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), traditionally a brittle material in tension, to become a nano-composite with superlative mechanical properties. However, highly attractive van der Waals forces between CNTs create coherent agglomerates that prove difficult to disperse within the cement matrix and reduce the fluidity of the fresh mixture. Good dispersion of CNTs, while maintaining good workability of fresh OPC–CNT paste mixtures, is a prequalification before CNT-cement nanocomposites can be considered as a future building and construction material with enhanced mechanical properties. This paper reports the results of investigations of the dispersion, workability, and strength of CNT aqueous and CNT–OPC paste mixtures, with and without several generically different dispersants/surfactants that are compatible as admixtures in the manufacture of concrete. These include an air entrainer, styrene butadiene rubber, polycarboxylates, calcium naphthalene sulfonate, and lignosulfonate formulations. Aqueous mixtures were initially assessed for dispersion of CNTs, followed by workability testing of selected OPC–CNT-dispersant/surfactant paste mixtures. A broad range of workability responses were measured and the CNT dispersion within hardened pastes was qualitatively assessed by SEM analysis.

Subfields: Civil and Structural Engineering, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/fadaf1568235e6d1b77bb2e35dd441a2351435b4

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Citations in the corpus

Review on concrete nanotechnology (2016, background): “In that sense, Collins, Lambert, and Duan (2012) reported the results of several investigations on the dispersion, workability and strength of CNTs aqueous and CNT–OPC paste mixes.”
Optimum mix design of geopolymer pastes and concretes cured in ambient condition based on compressive strength, setting time and workability (2019, methodology): “To assess the workability of geopolymer paste, mini-slump tests have been used in some 76 studies [18, 24, 25].”
Surface-modified graphite nanomaterials for improved reinforcement efficiency in cementitious paste (2013, methodology): “Different methods can be used for facilitating dispersion of graphite nanomaterials [16,20,28,35,57–60] in water via ultrasonication, including surface energy alteration, and functionalization.”