Abstract
This work examines the influencing mechanism of light radiation on performances and structures of calcium silicate hydrates (C-S-H) through exposing synthetic C-S-H samples to high-power Xenon radiation. The compositions, chemical structures and nanomorphology of C-S-H were investigated using XRD, TG, 29Si NMR, Ca XANES, Si XANES and TEM. Xenon radiation reduces the chemically bound water content in C-S-H and the drying effect induced by Xenon radiation is more pronounced in C-S-H with lower Ca/Si ratio. Xenon radiation increases the polymerization of C-S-H and elongates the silicate chain by driving separated Si–O tetrahedron to connect with each other without changing its Ca/Si ratio. Furthermore, Xenon radiation reduces the coordination numbers of Ca–O and causes the self-organization of chemical structure at molecular and atomic scales. The existence of portlandite improves the resistance of C-S-H to compositional and structural changes induced by Xenon radiation. These findings pave the way for understanding aging mechanism of cement-based materials under the action of solar radiation.
Graphic Abstract
Author contribution
Min Jin: Methodology, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Writing – Original Draft, Review & Editing. Wenwei Li: Investigation, Validation, Supervision, Conceptualization. Jinhui Tang: Formal analysis, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing. Yuefeng Ma: Experimental acquisitions, Formal analysis, Data curation, Validation. Yang Zhou: Simulations, Funding acquisition, Supervision. Jiaping Liu: Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Writing – Review & Editing.
Disclosure Statement
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article.