Development of green cement mortar using industrial by-products

Abstract

Cement is the main construction material in the infrastructure, and it determines the key properties of the concrete structures. However, cement production causes many environmental issues, including but not limited to global warming and depletion of natural resources. Therefore, this paper focuses on replacing the Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) in cement mortar with ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) and pulverised fuel ash (PFA)) to develop a green mortar that has less negative environmental impacts compared to the OPC. Different ratios of GGBS and PFA (0-40% of cement) were used in this study, and the produced samples were cured for four weeks. The compressive strength of the green mortar was measured at the ages of 1, 2, 3 and 4 weeks. The results showed the produced mortar generally is weaker than the OPC mortar, where the final compressive strength of the reference sample, sample with 20% GGBS and 20% PFA, and samples with 35% of GGBS and 35% of PFA was 13.7, 10.1 and 7.3 MPa, respectively. However, the new mortar is beneficial for both environment and construction costs.