Effect of Some Nano-materials on the Phsico-Chemical and Mechanical Properties of Portland Cement Pastes

Abstract

Recently, nano-technology has been attracted considerable scientific interest due to the new potential uses of nano-materials (NMs) with particle size in nanometer (10-9m) scale. It was stated that, the fineness of cement affects its reactivity with water and generally the finer the cement the more rapidly it will react .NMs can change the concrete world, due to their properties at ultra fine level. There is a great interest of replacing materials in concrete structure with nano-sized materials to improve the physico-mechanical properties of concrete or to replace part of cement, producing ecological profile concrete as well as admixtures in cement pastes. In both cases, the presence of NPs improves the cement performance with time, in fresh mixtures an improvement of rheological properties has been recorded and in the hardened state, the mechanical properties were increased (Abd El-Aziz, et al., (2005) and Monteiro, et al., (2009)). SEM observations revealed the presence of nano-crystallized tobermorite like phase (CSH) (Chen, et al., 2013 & Sánchez, et al., 2011) and also NPs have been found to act as nuclei for hydration