The Atomic-Level Structure of Cementitious Calcium Silicate Hydrate

Kumar, Abhishek; Walder, Brennan J.; Mohamed, Aslam Kunhi; Hofstetter, Albert; Srinivasan, Bhuvanesh; Rossini, Aaron J.; Scrivener, Karen; Emsley, Lyndon and Bowen, Paul (2017): The Atomic-Level Structure of Cementitious Calcium Silicate Hydrate. In: Journal of Physical Chemistry C, Vol. 121, No. 32: pp. 17188-17196

Abstract

Efforts to tune the bulk physical properties of concrete are hindered by a lack of knowledge related to the atomic-level structure and growth of calcium silicate hydrate phases, which form about 50-60% by volume of cement paste. Here we describe the first synthesis of compositionally uniform calcium silicate hydrate phases with Ca:Si ratios tunable between 1.0 and 2.0. The calcium silicate hydrate synthesized here does not contain a secondary Ca(OH)(2) phase, even in samples with Ca:Si ratios above 1.6, which is unprecedented for synthetic calcium silicate hydrate systems. We then solve the atomic-level three-dimensional structure of these materials using dynamic nuclear polarization enhanced H-1 and Si-29 nuclear magnetic resonance experiments in combination with atomistic simulations and density functional theory chemical shift calculations. We discover that bridging interlayer calcium ions are the defining structural characteristic of single-phase cementitious calcium silicate hydrate, inducing the strong hydrogen bonding that is responsible for stabilizing the structure at high Ca:Si ratios.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Geosciences > Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences
• Subjects: 500 Science > 550 Earth sciences and geology
• ISSN: 1932-7447
• Language: English