The main measure to reduce energy losses is the usage of insulating materials. When the temperature exceeds 500 °C, silicate and ceramic products are most commonly used. In this work, high-crystallinity 1.13 nm tobermorite and xonotlite were hydrothermally synthesized from lime and Ca–Si sedimentary rock, opoka. By XRD, DSC, TG and dilatometry methods, it has been shown that 1.13 nm tobermorite becomes the predominant compound in stirred suspensions at 200 °C after 4 h of synthesis in the mixture with a molar ratio CaO/SiO2 = 0.83. It is suitable for the production of insulating products with good physical–mechanical properties (average density < 200 kg·m−1, compressive strength ~0.9 MPa) but has a limited operating temperature (up to 700 °C). Sufficiently pure xonotlite should be used to obtain materials with a higher operating temperature. Even small amounts of semi-amorphous C–S–H(I) significantly increase its linear shrinkage during firing. It has also been observed that an increase in the strength values of the samples correlated well with the increase in the size of xonotlite crystallites. The optimal technological parameters are as follows: molar ratio of mixture CaO/SiO2 = 1.2; water/solid ratio W/S = 20.0; duration of hydrothermal synthesis at 220 °C—8 h, duration of autoclaving at 220 °C—4 h. The average density of the samples was ~180 kg·m−1, the operating temperature was at least 1000 °C, and the compressive strengths exceeded 1.5 MPa.

No abstract

The idea of this work is to reduce the negative effect of ordinary Portland cement (OPC) manufacture on the environment by decreasing clinker production temperature and developing an alternative rankinite binder that hardens in the CO2 atmosphere. The common OPC raw materials, limestone and mica clay, if they contain a higher MgO content, have been found to be unsuitable for the synthesis of CO2-curing low-lime binders. X-ray diffraction analysis (ex-situ and in-situ in the temperature range of 25–1150 °C) showed that akermanite Ca2Mg(Si2O7) begins to form at a temperature of 900 °C. According to Rietveld refinement, the interlayer distances of the resulting curve are more accurately described by the compound, which contains intercalated Fe2+ and Al3+ ions and has the chemical formula Ca2(MgO0.495·FeO0.202·AlO0.303)·(FeO0.248·AlO·Si1.536·O7). Stoichiometric calculations showed that FeO and Al2O3 have replaced about half of the MgO content in the akermanite structure. All this means that only ~4 wt% MgO content in the raw materials determines that ~60 wt% calcium magnesium silicates are formed in the synthesis product. Moreover, it was found that the formed akermanite practically does not react with CO2. Within 24 h of interaction with 99.9 wt% of CO2 gas (15 bar), the intensity of the akermanite peaks does not practically change at 25 °C; no changes are observed at 45 °C, either, which means that the chemical reaction does not take place. As a result, the compressive strength of the samples compressed from the synthesized product and CEN Standard sand EN 196-1 (1:3), and hardened at 15 bar CO2, 45 °C for 24 h, was only 14.45 MPa, while the analogous samples made from OPC clinker obtained from the same raw materials yielded 67.5 MPa.

No abstract

In this study, parameters of α-C2SH synthesis from limestone and quartz sand were determined and compressive strength values of the hydraulic cementitious binder, manufactured on its basis, were established. The results show that slow hydrothermal reactions in the calcium oxide–quartz–water system can be intensified using sodium oxide additive. In this case, α-C2SH was already the dominant compound in the product after 8 h of hydrothermal synthesis at 200°C in stirred suspensions. It was found that tribochemical activation must be combined with thermal treatment in order to obtain a hydraulically active cementitious binder from the mixture of synthesised α-C2SH and quartz sand. The heat flow value of such binding material during its main hydration reaction varied from 0·0019 W/g to 0·0028 W/g when the temperature of the thermal treatment was increased from 400°C to 450°C. Strength measurements showed that the addition of sieved quartz sand increased the compressive strength of the mortars, compared with a pure hydraulic cementitious binder, from 10·3 MPa to 13·5 MPa after 3 d, from 12·9 MPa to 16·7 MPa after 7 d and from 19·4 MPa to 22·5 MPa after 28 d of hydration.