On the hydration of synthetic aluminosilicate glass as a sole cement precursor
Mohammad I.M. Alzeer, Hoang Nguyen, Tapio Fabritius, Harisankar Sreenivasan, Ville‐Veikko Telkki, Anu M. Kantola, Christopher Cheeseman, Mirja Illikainen, Päivö Kinnunen
Abstract
This paper reports on the synthesis and characteristics of a novel aluminosilicate glass-based cementitious binder. We investigated the hydration kinetics, degree of reaction, and phase assemblage of the glass via XRD, DTG, 27Al and 29Si MAS NMR, FTIR, SEM/EDS and thermodynamic modelling. The glass exhibits hydraulic properties in which the binder developed impressive compressive strength at early age. The main hydration products are an intermixed of Na and/or Al incorporated in C–S–H gel. Hydrotalcite precipitated with slower rate and thus may generate crystallization pressure on the binder at late stage. The glass reached a high degree of hydration (ca. 73 % based on quantitative 29Si NMR analysis) without using any activators or co-binding systems. Therefore, the developed glass reported herein has high potential as a new low-carbon cementitious binder since it can be synthesised from naturally occurring carbonate free silicate minerals.