Evaluation of cellulosic pulps treated by hornification as reinforcement of cementitious composites

Abstract

h i g h l i g h t sHornification treatment does not deteriorate the fiber quality. Hornificated pulps show good behavior as reinforcement for composites at early ages. Hornification process presents potential to be used as a treatment for cellulosic pulps. a b s t r a c tThis study evaluated the effect of the hornification process on cellulosic fibers of bleached pine and unbleached eucalyptus with in order to improve its durability and volume stability to be used as reinforcement in cementitious matrices. The study indicated that the treatment did not deteriorate the properties of viscosity and index of crystallinity and decreased the capacity of water retention. Composites reinforced with hornificated and untreated pulps with thermal curing or accelerated aging were produced and evaluated to assess their physical and mechanical behavior. The use of hornificated fibers as reinforcement generated improvements in the modulus of rupture and specific energy of the composites.

Tensile and Flexural Properties of Cement Composites Reinforced with Flax Nonwoven Fabrics

“…In the majority of the studies about cement composites reinforced with natural fibers, the reinforcement is in the form of short fibers (usually pulps) randomly dispersed on the matrix [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] and only a few studies describe the performance of composites with the fibers in the form of textile structures, like directional, woven, or nonwoven fabrics [11,12,13,14,15]. The randomly dispersed fibers allow significant improvements on the flexural strength and ductility of the cement composites, but these improvements are limited by the short length of the fibers (usually in the order of 2–10 mm to few cm) and the maximum quantity that it is possible to mix with the cement matrix [1].…”

Natural fiber nonwoven reinforced cement composites as sustainable materials for building envelopes

“…This irreversible effect [38][39][40], known as "hornification" and quantified as the percentage reduction in the water-retention value (WRV), occurs in the cell wall matrix of the fibers, resulting in intensely bonded structures [41]. This simple and ecofriendly treatment, which uses water as the reagent, has been used successfully to obtain more durable cement composites reinforced with cellulose pulps [42,43], or sisal strands [44].…”

Optimization of the MgO SiO2 binding system for fiber-cement production with cellulosic reinforcing elements

“…The fiber-cement composites were made out of 95 wt.% cement paste and 5 wt.% of unbleached pulp, characterized according to [30]. Flat pads with a thickness of around 6 mm were produced at laboratory scale using a slurry vacuum-dewatering process followed by a pressing technique, as described in detail by Savastano et al [31], and were wet cut into four …”