Contribution to low-carbon building industry and improved durability through incorporation of waste into cement composites

By using mineral waste in the production of cement composites, it is possible not only to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and carbon footprint, but by adding secondary waste such as fly ash, silica fume or slag, some properties of the resulting composites are also improved. The waste mentioned are recommended to increase the durability of cement composites against acidic corrosion. The paper presents an examination of the possible positive effects of the mineral waste to improvement of cement pastes resistance against acid rain attack. Exposition of cement pastes to experimental solutions included natural acid rain, laboratory acid rain and deionized water as reference medium during 150 days. Findings revealed that addition of fly ash, silica fume and zeoslag had improved the resistance of cement pastes to acid rain. A positive effect was seen for all additives, but the best results were found for fly ash pastes which achieved the permeability lower than the reference sample by 56 to 70%. Ion penetration testing proved to be a perspective method to estimate the actual behavior of the cement composites in real environment.