Chloride Binding in Slag Containing Composite Cements

Kapitel i bok, 2023

Higher availability of grand granulated blast furnace slag compared to coal fly ash has attributed lots of attention to this supplementary cementitious material in recent years, especially with respect to applications in infrastructure. Therefore, further research on long term performance of slag containing binders in chloride containing environments is promoted. In this article chloride binding in a high slag containing composite binder (70% substitution) with respect to the changes in structure of CSH gel prior and after exposure to chlorides and its effect on chemical and physical chloride binding is accounted for. The changes in the structure of CSH are accounted by NMR analysis and the effect of these changes on chloride binding is addressed through adsorption tests. The results are compared with a ternary binder of cement-silica fume-metakaolin, given the relatively similar chemical composition between these two composite binders, as well as a reference Portland cement binder. The results infer that the slag containing binder exhibits higher chloride binding capacity compared to the metakaolin-silica fume containing. Moreover, a higher share of chemically bound chloride (meaning a lower physical binding) in SCM containing binders is foreseen compared to pure Portland cement system, due to the increased C(-A)-S-H chain length and Al/Si molar ratio in these binders. Furthermore, it is shown that exposure to NaCl causes a higher share of chemically bound chlorides compared to the CaCl2 exposure while the total bound chloride content increases upon exposure to CaCl2.