Heat-cured cement-based composites with wet-grinded fly ash and carbide slag slurry: Hydration, compressive strength and carbonation

Abstract Fly ash (FA) with high glassy phase content is a pozzolanic material with low activity, while carbide slag is a solid waste with portlandite crystals embedded in the impurity phases. Herein, wet-grinding method was used twice to improve the pozzolanic reactivity of FA and promote the dissolution of embedded calcium hydroxide in the CS as a lime source, respectively. Wet-grinded FA slurry (WFA) with D50 of 2.5 μm and wet-grinded CS slurry (WCS) with D50 of 3.0 μm were prepared. It was found that setting times, hydration heat release, early and late compressive strength, carbonation resistance of high volume WFA blended composites were significantly enhanced by WCS, attributed to the pre-dissolved calcium resource and alkali reserve. However, an excessive amount (12 wt%) of WCS addition causes an abnormal decrease in strength, due to the microstructure degradation by coarse portlandite crystals. Higher proportion of C-S-H might be ready for carbonation in high volume WFA blended composites, due to the promoted Al incorporation in C-S-H by wet-grinding.