Investigation on the Effectiveness of Aqueous Carbonated Lime in Producing an Alternative Cementitious Material

With the aim to reduce the atmospheric CO2, utilization of the carbonated lime produced from the aqueous carbonation reaction for the synthesis of a cementitious material would be a promising approach. The present investigation deals with the aqueous carbonation of slaked lime, followed by hydrothermal synthesis of a cementitious material utilizing the carbonated lime, silica fume, and hydrated alumina. In this study, the aqueous carbonation reaction was performed under four different conditions. The TGA, FESEM, and XRD analysis of the carbonated product obtained from the four different reaction conditions was performed to evaluate the efficacy of the reaction conditions used for the production of the carbonated lime. Additionally, the performance of the cementitious material was verified analyzing the physical characteristics, mechanical property and setting time. Based on the results, it is demonstrated that the material produced by the hydrothermal method possesses the cementing ability. Additionally, it is revealed that the mortar prepared using the alternative cementitious material yields 33.8 ± 1.3 MPa compressive strength. Finally, a plausible reaction scheme has been proposed to explain the overall performances of the aqueous carbonation as well as the hydrothermal synthesis of the cementitious material.