What is it about?
Blending cement clinker with slag has been done for many years. This produces a low-carbon cement with comparable performance to ordinary Portland cement. However, demand for Portland cement is increasing faster than the supply of slag, so there is a need to develop cements which contain less clinker (so as to reduce the carbon footprint) yet also perform well. This paper looked at the performance of a range of clinker-slag-limestone cements and used a range of characterisation techniques to understand how changing the composition can affect performance.
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Why is it important?
If the global cement industry are to reduce their environmental footprint they are going to have to reduce the amount of clinker in their cement. Ternary blends are a potentially exciting way of doing this. However, it is equally important that the performance of these ternary cements is comparable or better than those they are replacing. We showed that, as well as subtly altering the composition of the phases formed, the presence of limestone accelerated slag hydration, to the benefit of early age performance.
Perspectives
This paper was the work of my PhD student, Sam, in collaboration with Heidelberg Cement. It was a very fruitful collaboration and has thrown up some exciting potential further studies.
Leon Black
University of Leeds
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Influence of limestone on the hydration of ternary slag cements, Cement and Concrete Research, October 2017, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.cemconres.2017.05.013.
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