Influences of Carbonated Recycled Concrete Fines on Cement Hydration

The preparation of recycled concrete aggregate generates a lot of fines, which are obstacles for implementing the recycled concrete aggregate. In this work, carbonation treatment is applied to improve the properties of recycled concrete fine, and the influences of carbonated recycled concrete fine (CRCF) on cement hydration process are evaluated. Both fresh and hardened properties of the cement paste samples replacing 0 to 30% of the CRCF are measured. The results reveal that the addition of CRCF obviously accelerates the hydration process of cement, especially during the early stage, and the initial and final setting times of the cement paste containing 30% CRCF are both reduced by approximately 25% compared to the control. The CRCF improves the strength gain of cement, and that influence becomes obvious with longer curing; the relative compressive strength of cement paste containing 30% CRCF is increased by 18% relative to the control after being cured for 28 days. At the same time, the early hydration of cement paste is accelerated with the addition of CRCF and the total hydration heat after 48 h of cement paste is significantly decreased with the addition of CRCF. Specifically, the total hydration heat after 48 h of cement paste with 30% CRCF is less than 50% of that with 0% CRCF. Besides that, CRCF consumes CH in cement paste and improves the pore structure of hardened cement paste. The morphology of hydrated samples shows that the shape of ettringite formed within the control sample with 0% CRCF is longer than those of the other ones formed in cement paste with CRCF, and the length decreases as the CRCF contents increase. In addition, the sample containing 30% CRCF does not show the particles, which means that CRCF reduces the ettringite forming in hardened paste samples. Thus, the findings from this work provide a better understanding of the field of waste concrete reuse.

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