The influence of SiMn slag on chemical resistance of blended cement pastes

Abstract During the last decades, industrial by-products and wastes recycling as complementary building materials is focusing a large number of researching studies, most of them dedicated to the cement and concrete production, studying technical, economical and environmental aspects. This paper presents an original contribution to this tendency, which consists on the possibility of recycling a SiMn slag from ferroalloys industry as a complementary construction material and its influence on the resistance of cement paste in different aggressive solutions. Different parameters, such as waste nature, additions, mechanical resistance, different aggressive solutions or morphological and microporosity changes were investigated. The results have showed that blended cement pastes elaborated with SiMn slag (5% and 15% additions) after 56 days of curing have a good resistance in some aggressive solutions, no losing weight and presenting an excellent resistance index compared to the reference matrix. Aggressive solutions presence do not alter elaborated pastes microporosity not minding if they are prepared with and without SiMn slag additions in the working conditions studied in this study.