Performance of blended concrete with supplementary cementitious materials under sulfuric acid - a systematic review

Abstract

Supplying sewerage systems in cities and factories has a high cost, both for design, execution, and maintenance. Reinforced concrete exposed to the aggressive acids produced by wastewater microorganisms receives high costly coatings to avoid corrosion and impairment of structural functions. Thus, this systematic review had two main goals: (1) to identify the supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) that improve concrete resistance to chemical sulfuric acid attack (H2SO4) and (2) to describe the performed tests to access concrete resistance to H2SO4 in laboratory conditions. After careful analysis of scientific references collected on indexed bases, the study showed that the test methods used to appraise samples resistance do not follow a standard protocol, hindering quantitative analysis between distinct studies results. In general, concrete resistance to H2SO4 is evaluated by immersing concrete samples in high concentrated acid solutions and assessing its compressive strength and mass change on a 28 or 30 days base sequence. Using SCMs improve resistance to sulfuric acid, and binders made with silica fume had the best results. This review may encourage the creation of test protocols to assess the resistance of concrete to H2SO4 that allow further statistical analysis of the research results.