Influence of selected additives and admixtures on underwater concrete and the environment

Abstract

The intensive civilization development implies searching for new possibilities connected with extension of city agglomerations, both the areas of flat building and the industrial areas. One of the most interesting solution is to use water reservoirs, rivers and sea areas. The extension of buildings affects the building materials, especially hydrotechnical concrete. Water structures are usually the objects of huge dimensions exposed to extreme conditions. In most cases these buildings are specific and complicated. They require an individual approach to concrete mix design and should be monitored by measurement technologies supported by automated numerical examinations. Nowadays health monitoring systems are applied to large variety of engineering structures. In order to get the required quality of hydrotechnical concrete, additives and admixtures are necessary. The material properties of underwater concrete can be also improved using polymer and steel fibers of various content and length. The majority of areas are built of concrete, that is the reason to be aware of admixture influence on the environment and living organisms. The attempt to evaluate the description of different kinds of hydrotechnical concrete as potential habitat of water organisms, was indicated in the paper.

Flow cytometric approach to evaluate the impact of hydro-technical concrete compounds’ release to the freshwater microbiome

“…In order to reduce the toxicity of concrete, the cubes were placed in the lake (natural reservoir, about 1500 ha), in the coastal and wave zone, 5 m from the shore, at a depth of 1 m, for 9 months (from September 2016 to June 2017) (Mariak et al, 2018;Wojtasik et al, 2019). After the exposition period, BP cubes were stained with the Rose Bengal sodium salt (Sigma-Aldrich Merck) to determine the spreading of samples by small aquatic organisms and microorganisms.…”

“…Studies on the influence of concrete's components on the environmental microflora are limited in number and in terms of methods applied to measure the impact on the microbiome at a single-cell level. Mariak et al presented the description of different kinds of hydrotechnical concrete as a potential habitat of water organisms and that some underwater concretes (UWC) could be toxic for living organisms (Mariak et al, 2018). In contrast, the problem of microbial cell-induced concrete corrosion is commonly investigated (Grengg et al, 2018).…”