MICROSTRUCTURE INVESTIGATION OF SEAWATER VS. FRESHWATER CEMENT PASTES

• DOI: 10.14455/isec.res.2019.112
• Publication Date: 2020-03-04T07:35:06Z
• Authors: Adel Younis; Usama Ebead; Prannoy Suraneni; Antonio Nanni
• Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainability, Seawater-mixed concrete, Scanning electron microscopy, Secondary electrons, Back-scattered electrons, Energy dispersive X-ray; Back-scattered electrons; Secondary electrons; Seawater-mixed concrete; 0211 other engineering and technologies; 02 engineering and technology; Energy dispersive X-ray; Scanning electron microscopy

Recently, seawater has emerged as viable mixing water for concrete, especially in the case of non-reinforced concrete applications or with use non-corrosive reinforcement. Previous studies concerning seawater-mixed mostly revealed an initial slight increase its strength performance (i.e., till Day 14 following mixing), followed by a reduction 7–15% after 28 days longer) compared to conventional freshwater-mixed concrete. With attempt explain such observations, this paper aims at comparing microstructure freshwater-and cement pastes. Scanning electron microscopy was utilized observe freshwater and pastes Days 3 mixing. At 3, paste observed have more densified that counterpart, resulting relatively higher performance. 28, almost similar two However, salt impurities result ions, which possibly cause slightly lower paste.