Natural Cellulose Nanofibers As Sustainable Enhancers in Construction Cement

Abstract

Cement is one of the mostly used construction materials due to its high durability and low cost, but it suffers from brittle fracture and facile crack initiation. This article describes the use of naturally-derived renewable cellulose nanofibers (CNFs) to reinforce cement. The effects of CNFs on the mechanical properties, degree of hydration (DOH), and microstructure of cement pastes have been studied. It is found that an addition of 0.15% by weight of CNFs leads to a 15% and 20% increase in the flexural and compressive strengths of cement paste. The enhancement in mechanical strength is attributed to high DOH and dense microstructure of cement pastes after adding CNFs.

Nano-Fibrillated Cellulose as a Green Alternative to Carbon Nanotubes in Nano Reinforced Cement Composites

“…While the highest early age compressive strength reached 37.26 MPa for cement substitution by 0.02% nano-cellulose, with a reduction of 10.1% lower than the control mix. The relatively low compression strength of nano-cellulose mixes after 7 days can be attributed to that the hydroxyl and carboxyl groups in the cellulose molecules react with Ca +2 to form complexes, which can lower the hydration period resulting in retarding the setting time [33]. After 28 days, the maximum compressive obtained for NCL mixes was 51.4 MPa at 0.04% by wt NCL with an improvement of 10.68% than the control mix.…”

“…While for NCL mixes was prepared by the same method and with the same replacing ratios. Then subjected only to sonication in an equal amount of water through bath sonicator to improve the dispersion of cellulose nano-particles in the cement matrix [33][34]. Figures 3 shows the solution of CNT and NCL after subjected to the sonication method.…”

Chemical degradation of reinforced epoxy‐cement composites under CO2‐rich environments

“…Nevertheless, the formation of such polymer clumps may explain the loss of compressive strength in the composites containing a high epoxy resin content (Fig. ); they can represent areas of stress concentration which provide points of weakness in the composite structure . Moreover, addition of polymers to cement paste can favor air entrainment, which masks possible strengthening of the composite .…”

Compressive and Flexural Strength Behavior of Ultra-high Performance Mortar Reinforced with Cellulose Nano-fibers

“…The inclusion of cellulose fibers in cementitious materials was also effective in mitigating drying shrinkage-induced cracking and significantly reduced the crack width propagation. When compared to cellulose nano crystals, cellulose nano fibers were also found better with high yield and low-cost character [11].…”