Effect of polymer on morphology and structure of calcium silicate hydrate prepared via precipitation method

The effects of polyacrylamide (PAM) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) on morphology and structure of calcium silicate hydrate with C/S 1.0–1.7 prepared via precipitation in solution were investigated by XRD, FT-IR and TEM techniques. The results show that incorporation of the polymers decreased the order degree, increased the interlayer spacing and disturbed the layered stacking of C-S-H. Interlayer spacing expansion depended on C/S ratios and type of polymer. Interlayer spacing expansion had a minimum at C/S 1.0 and a maximum at C/S 1.3 and 1.5. Interlayer spacing expansion of PAM was bigger than that of PVA with the same C/S. C-S-H added with PVA mainly exhibited foil-like and fibrillar morphology. The fibrils were of variable length from a few tens of nanometers to a few hundreds of nanometers. Fibrils or foils seemed to be longer in the presence of PVA.