Hydration of cement paste starts as we add water to dry cement and different product will form with the passage of time due to the dissolution of alite, belite, aluminate, calcium sulfate, gypsum etc. Suppose I have to find out what are the phase contents of these aforementioned items and new products formed due to hydration of cement paste at 0.5hr, 1hr, 2hr, 3hr and so on and so forth. For the exact quantification of the same, hydration have to be stopped at that particular age. So, which is the best technique to stop hydration of cement paste?
Regulating hydration process with different interval is a difficult process. However, I would suggest you to experiment this with adding sugar with different percentage or similar compound which delayed the hydration process. With certain percentage say 0.2to 1%prevents the setting of cement.
Thank you Om prakash Chhangani for your suggestion. But the point is that anyway I have to stop the hydration process at particular age, so that I will able to find out what are the hydration product at that time which are responsible for strength gain.
Hi Arup,
You would want to remove free water quickly and in early age pastes. Either short freeze drying or solvent exchange with isopropanol might work in your case. You might find the following links helpful for a comparative analysis of these methods:
1. Article: Comparison of methods for arresting hydration of cement, Zhang and Scherer, 2011 Article Comparison of Methods for Arresting Hydration of Cement
2. Book: A practical guide to microstructural analysis, Scrivener, Snellings and Lothenbach, 2018 [DOI: https://doi.org/10.1201/b19074].
In general all methods will alter the microstructure at least a little bit and cause decomposition of your hydrate phases. Especially the AFm and ettringite phases. So if that is something you would want to study and quantify precisely, it maybe an idea to check the time-resolved hydration and phase composition with XRD analysis. Check these:
Article A New Approach in Quantitative in-situ XRD of Cement Pastes:...
and Quantitative in situ X-ray diffraction analysis of early hydration of Portland cement at defined temperatures, Hesse et al. [DOI: https://doi.org/10.1154/1.3120603]
Best.
Thank you Amrita for your valuable suggestion. Its really helpful.
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