On the kinetics of pozzolanic reaction in metakaolin–lime–water system

The kinetics of pozzolanic reaction metakaolin–lime is studied in the present work. Metakaolin is prepared by calcination of enriched kaolin (deposit “Senovo”, Bulgaria) at temperature of 830 ± 10 °C in a labscale muffle oven. The reaction is performed in intensively stirred water suspension at different temperatures in the range 20–100 °C. The kinetics is analyzed by comparing the experimental data with theoretical curves, derived according to appropriate kinetic and diffusion models taking into account the grain size distribution of metakaolin. The macroscopic mechanism and activation energy of the reaction are determined. It is found, that the activation energy decreases gradually from 71 to 45 kJ/mol[Ca(OH)2] with the increase of the reaction degree from 0.2 up to 0.6, respectively, which is a characteristic for transition regime reactions.