An Experimental Study of Pig Blood–Lime Mortar Used on Ancient Architecture in China

Portland cement has low chemical and physical affinity for traditional building materials. This hinders the restoration of historical buildings and modern rustic architecture where blue bricks are used. Pig blood–lime mortar is one of the most important technological inventions in the Chinese architectural history. Mortar in this work was fabricated according to formulas of the literature, and some analyses were conducted for further understanding their microstructure. Environmental scanning electron microscopy was utilized to analyze mechanism of interaction between key components of ancient mortar bonding materials. Results show that pig blood accelerates the formation of microstructure at early stage. Pig blood plays the role of biological templates which regulates the growth of calcium carbonate crystal.