Forced and natural carbonation of lime-based mortars with and without additives: Mineralogical and textural changes
Section snippets
Introduction and objectives
Lime mortars have been used as building materials since ancient times [1], [2], [3]. In the 19th century, the appearance of Portland cement led to a considerable fall in their use [4] because cement offered certain advantages such as fast setting and high mechanical resistance [5], [6]. Lime mortars are now beginning to be used again in the restoration of historic buildings because they are compatible with traditional building materials [7], [8], [9], with which Portland cement shows low
Materials and methods
Four types of lime mortars (non-hydraulic and hydraulic) were tested against forced and natural carbonation by CO2 (the abbreviation for each group of mortars is defined in brackets):
- 1)
pure lime (L);
- 2)
lime+air-entraining agent (LA);
- 3)
lime+pozzolana (LP);
- 4)
lime+pozzolana+air-entraining agent (LPA).
The weight percentage of additives was: 0.1% for the air-entraining agent (according to the recommendations of the manufacturer) and 20% for the pozzolana in accordance with the UNE 80-301-87 standard for
Weight increase
After 30 days all the samples subjected to forced carbonation registered weight increases of approximately 6% (at which time it was decided to stop the test as no further weight changes were discernible in the mortars). The highest values were for the L group (6.6%) and the lowest for the LP group (5.7%). The lower values registered by LA and LPA mortars if compared with the L group can be explained by the fact that the air-entraining agent generates highly porous mortars with a low degree of
Conclusions
The following conclusions can be reached:
- 1)
Different techniques, such as the determination of the weight of the mortars or the quantification by XRD of the different mineral phases that constitute them, provide very similar results. They enable the speed of mortar carbonation to be calculated and ensure that the process is completed quickly and reliably.
- 2)
In the mortars studied in this work, a ≥90 wt.% portlandite–calcite transformation was achieved by XRD in just over 1 week by subjecting the
Acknowledgements
This research has been supported by a Marie Curie Fellowship of the European Community Programme “Energy, Environment and Sustainable Development” under contract number EVK4-CT-2002-50006, by the Research Group RNM179 of the Junta de Andalucía and by the Research Project DGI-MAT-2000-1457 from the Spanish government. We thank the Centro de Instrumentación Científica of the Universidad de Granada for technical assistance during SEM, thermogravimetry and granulometry analyses and Nigel Walkington
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