Promising low cost carbon-based materials to improve strength and toughness in cement composites. (15th November 2016) - Restuccia, Luciana
Highlights: Pyrolyzed biomasses have been explored as nano-aggregates into cement composites. Carbon nano-aggregates considerably affect the flexural and compressive strength. Small quantities of carbon particles greatly increase the fracture energy. Carbon nano-aggregates confer a ductile behavior to the cement composites. Carbon particles have zero cost, as they are waste of heat treatment of biomass. Abstract: The Bio-char, the solid sub-product of pyrolysis process, has several applications in the cement and concrete green technology. In this research, the utilization of Bio-char such as nanoparticles has been analysed. Two types of pyrolyzed agro-food waste, coffee powder and hazelnut shells, have been investigated as carbon nano-aggregates, in different percentages of addition with respect to the weight of the cement. Results have demonstrated that small amount of both pyrolyzed materials improves the mechanical properties of cementitious composites, as they are capable of increasing not only the flexural and compressive strength, but also the fracture energy with a more tortuous crack path which increases the final fracture surface.