Effect of graphene oxide on the microstructure and hydration characteristics of ultrafine slag cement composites

Abstract

The current research elucidates the attempt of augmenting cement with combos of Graphene Oxide (GO) and Ultrafine slag (UFS) into cement, intending to evaluate the microstructural attributes relating to hydration kinetics of graphene oxide modified ultrafine slag cement blends. The morphology and microstructure changes in the cement blends were scrutinized via instrumental techniques like X-ray diffraction (XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) examinations. Compression strength was observed in blends integrating UFS (10%) and GO (0.03%), taken as the optimum blend ratio a maximum of 40.4% improvement was observed at 28 days of curing. Further, the comb of 10% UFS and 0.03% GO in the cement-slurry culminated in an optimistic influence on microstructure. Hence, it demands the usage of UFS and GO as worth agents in creating cementitious constituents.

Keywords:

• Graphene oxide
• cement/cementitious materials
• hydration
• microstructure
• compressive strength

Acknowledgements

Not applicable.

Disclosure statement

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Funding

The authors declare that no grant/funds were received for conducting this study.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Author contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Yeswanth Sai T under the supervision of Dr. Jagadeesh P. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Yeswanth Sai T. Review and editing in the draft of the manuscript were performed by Dr. Jagadeesh P. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All procedures followed were in accordance with ethical standards.