Construction and Building Materials 146 (2017) 321–328

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Properties of alkali-activated slag with addition of cation exchange

material
Xiao Huang, Shuguang Hu ⇑, Fazhou Wang ⇑, Yunpeng Liu, Yuandong Mu
State Key Laboratory of Silicate Materials for Architecture, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China

h i g h l i g h t s

 Cation exchange materials drastically reduced mobile alkali metal cations in AAS.
 The type of exchanged cation crucially influenced the properties of AAS.
 Vermiculite was preferable to improve the comprehensive performance of AAS.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The massive mobile alkali metal cations in alkali-activated slag (AAS) cements are significantly connected
Received 10 December 2016 to the issues such as efflorescence, carbonation and potential alkali-aggregate reaction, and greatly
Received in revised form 2 March 2017 restrict their extensive application and development. This paper attempts to use cation exchange mate-
Accepted 14 March 2017
rials to remove the freely moved alkali cations in AAS cements. Two representative cation exchange
materials, vermiculite and 5A zeolite, were added at mass ratio of 5% and 10% to slag activated by sodium
hydroxide. 5A zeolite showed a faster and stronger ions exchange capability to vermiculite in alkaline
Keywords:
solution. However vermiculite immobilized more Na+ ions than 5A zeolite in AAS pastes, and the speci-
Alkali-activated slag
Cation exchange material
mens with vermiculite displayed a higher compressive strength, attributed to generate more hydration
Microstructure products which were shown in XRD, TG-DSC and EDS tests, and formed a compact microstructure seen
Na-leachability in SEM image. It is concluded that these two cation exchange materials could remarkably reduce the
unrestrained alkali ions in the AAS cements, and the properties of AAS cements influenced by cation
exchange materials are highly dependent on the category of the exchanged cations.
Ó 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction
For the purpose of reducing environmental impact of the con-
ventional Portland cement production which contributes about
7% of the total worldwide CO2 emissions [1], researchers are paying
closer attention to the development of ecological low carbon
cementitious materials [2]. As a typical kind of environmental
friendly alternative binder, Alkali-activated materials (AAMs)
attract extensive concerns around the world [3–5].
Alkali-activated slag (AAS) is one of the AAMs using slag as the
main activated raw pozzolan materials and exhibits excellent
mechanical properties and brilliant chemical erosion resistance
⇑ Corresponding authors at: State Key Laboratory of Silicate Materials for
Architecture, Wuhan University of Technology, 122# Luoshi Road, Wuhan
430070, China (S. Hu). School of Materials Science and Engineering, Wuhan
University of Technology, 122# Luoshi Road, Wuhan 430070, China (F. Wang).
E-mail addresses: hsg@whut.edu.cn (S. Hu), fzhwang@whut.edu.cn (F. Wang).
[6,3]. In spite of its promising performance, AAS has not obtained
extensive industry application, primarily because of lower worka-
bility [7], drying shrinkage [8], carbonation [9], efflorescence [10]
and potential alkali-aggregate reaction [11]. Aforementioned prob-
lems are closely entwined with massive alkali metal cations in AAS.
Therefore, it is worthy to study the existence form of alkali metal
cations in AAS and relationships between alkali metal cations
and hydrated products.
The primarily hydration products in AAS are calcium alumi-
nosilicate hydrated gels (C–A–S–H) with a low Ca/Si ratio, hydro-
talcite and other mineral phases [12]. Only a small part of alkalis
are taken up by C-A-S-H gels through maintaining charge balance
of alumina groups, replacing protons or calcium ions of silanol
groups and occupying empty sites in the interlayer structure of
C-A-S-H gels [13]. Other mineral hydrates including hydrotalcite
only take up negligible amounts of alkali cations [14]. Conse-
quently, most alkali ions remain in original state and could freely
move in the AAS matrix which is directly responsible for the above

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2017.03.127
0950-0618/Ó 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
322 X. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 146 (2017) 321–328
mentioned issues of AAS. How to reduce these unrestrained alkali
metal cations is critically essential to improve the corresponding
properties of AAS cements and extraordinarily deserved for inten-
sive study.
Some authors attempt to reduce the excessive mobile alkali
cations in AAS cement by drawing into aluminosilicate materials,
altering curing methods, and varying species of the alkali ions
[10,15], but not achieving the desired results. This paper try to han-
dle with these freely moved alkali ions from a brand new perspec-
tive, by introducing cation exchange materials which could
exchange and immobilize the vast free alkali ions. There are two
categories of cation exchange materials used in this study, includ-
ing layer structure mineral vermiculite and framework structure
mineral 5A zeolite which has been studied as a modifier to AAS
cements by many researchers [16–18] and proved to availably
exchange Na+ in geopolymeric material [19]. The ion exchange per-
formance of these two cation exchange materials in alkaline solu-
tion and AAS cements is tested respectively, and the hydration and
property development mechanisms are compared among the dif-
ferent contents of cation exchange materials.
2. Experiment
2.1. Raw materials and specimen preparation
2.1.1. Raw materials
The slag, vermiculite, 5A zeolite and sodium hydroxide (chem-
ical pure) was purchased from commercial company. The chemical
composition of slag, vermiculite and 5A zeolite was measured by
X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis (PANalytical.B.V, Netherlands),
and showed in Table 1. The alkaline solution used as activator in
this study was prepared by dissolving sodium hydroxide in deio-
nised water with specified sodium equivalent (5 M) and cooling
to room temperature prior to produce AAS samples.
2.1.2. Specimen preparation
The AAS specimens were manufactured by mixing the slag with
5 M NaOH solution at a constant liquid (deionised water) to solid
(including slag and cation exchange materials) ratio of 0.40. Requi-
site amount of the vermiculite or 5A zeolite was gradually added
while mixing until the components were homogenized. The pastes
were rapidly casted into cubical steel molds of 40 mm size, and
compacted for 5 min on the table vibrator. These specimens were
cured at moist room (95% RH, 20 ± 1 °C) for 24 ± 2 h before
demolding. The demolded specimens were continuingly cured at
moist room (95% RH, 20 ± 1 °C) for prescribed curing period to
following tests. The AAS specimens were synthesized with differ-
ent vermiculite or 5A zeolite replacement content to slag: 0, 0.05
and 0.10, denoted as C0, V5, V10, Z5 and Z10 respectively.
Select debris from the compression tests and soak the debris in
alcohol for three days in order to arrest further reaction. The debris
was then put into vacuum drying oven at temperature of 65 °C for
at least 24 h. After this, some of the debris was partly ground into
fine powder and the particles passed 75 lm sieve were used for
further analysis. The rest of the debris was well kept for
microstructure analysis. For the BSE and EDX study, the debris
Table 1
Chemical composition of slag, vermiculite and 5A zeolite.
Materials Weight (%)
SiO2 Al2O3 Fe2O3 MgO CaO
Slag 35.37 15.74 0.30 4.70 36.70
Vermiculite 38.22 14.77 4.92 22.88 4.18
5A zeolite 34.62 28.39 0.02 / 11.51
was cut into 1–2 mm thick slices and further impregnated with
epoxy resin, polished to 1/4 lm and coated with Pt.
2.2. Analysis techniques
In ions exchange test, the exchange solution was alkaline solu-
tion equally to manufacture AAS specimens and sodium chloride
solution with the same molar concentration to alkaline solution.
10.8 g cation exchange material was added into 100 g exchange
solution in 200 ml Erlenmeyer flask with magnetic stick and sealed
by parafilm to prevent evaporation. Place the Erlenmeyer flask on
the stirring platform and turn on the magnetic stirrer. After specific
time stirring, the mixed solution was filtered to remove solid pow-
der. The filtered solution was given suitable ion concentration for
inductive coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-
OES, Optima4300DV, PerkinElmer) analysis.
Compressive test was performed on WYA-300 Automated
Breaking and Compressive Resistance tester (Wuxi Xiyi Building
Materials Instrument Factory, China). Six samples of each formula-
tion were tested and the average data were reported.
Thermogravimetric analysis (TG-DSC, STA 449 F3 Jupiter,
NETZSCH) was carried out on the sieved AAS sample powders heat-
ing from ambient to 1000 °C.
The XRD patterns were obtained with D8 Advance (BRUKER AXS
GMBH) using monochromatic CuKa radiation and running with 2h
in the range of 5–70° at a speed of 2°/min.
Microstructural images were obtained using a Scanning Elec-
tron Microscope (SEM, Quanta FEG 450, FEI). Backscattered elec-
tron images (BSE) coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray
spectroscopy microanalysis (EDX) to determine the ratios of the
different elements in the matrix on polished samples (more than
100 points were taken for each measurement).
In Na-leachability test, 5.000 g ± 0.0001 g of powder was added
to 50 mL of deionised water in a covered container. After 18 h ± 2 h
vibration in oscillator, the mixed solution was filtered to remove
solid powder. The filtered solution was given suitable Na+ concen-
trations for inductive coupled plasma optical emission spectrome-
ter (ICP-OES, Optima4300DV, PerkinElmer) analysis.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Ions exchange test
Vermiculite is a representative 2:1 type layered aluminosilicate
mineral, consisting of two tetrahedral layers with a octahedral
layer stuck in the middle, and many balance of cation (Mg2+/
Ca2+/Fe2+) fill the void between layers, as shown in Fig. 1 [20].
For this particular structure, vermiculite possesses the strongest
cation exchange capacity (CEC) within natural layered clay miner-
als seen in Fig. 2 [21], widely applied to remove contaminative
metal ions especially heavy metal ions in waste water [22–24].
5A zeolite is an A-type zeolite with pore size of 5 Å and can be
obtained by ion exchange method [19], namely replacing Na+ in 4A
zeolite with Ca2+ in solution displayed in Fig. 3. The balanced
cations (Ca2+) of 5A zeolite could exchange and immobilize
massive Na+.
Na2O K2O SO3 TiO2 P2 O5 Loss
0.29 0.45 2.23 3.91 0.11 0.15
/ 0.42 0.01 0.71 / 13.82
3.39 0.06 0.05 / / 21.91
 X. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 146 (2017) 321–328
Fig. 1. Crystal structure of natural vermiculite [20].
Fig. 2. Schematic representation of the relationship between CEC, interlayer charge
and rate of sites irreversibly fixing K+ or NH+ [21].
The vermiculite and 5A zeolite ions exchange tests in sodium
chloride solution and alkaline solution are respectively shown in
Figs. 4 and 5. 5A zeolite exchanges 1.934 mg/mL Ca2+ ions into
sodium chloride solution for half an hour, about tenfold to Mg2+
Fig. 3. Crystal structure of 5A zeolite.
323
Fig. 4. Ions exchange ability of vermiculite and 5A zeolite in sodium chloride
solution.
ions (0.184 mg/mL) exchanged from vermiculite and the
exchanged cations keep continuous growing till 24 h. It is revealed
that these two cation exchange materials could exchange vast Na+
from the solution and release many cations into solution in the
meantime. Only half an hour for ions exchange in alkaline solution,
vermiculite decreases Na+ concentration from 0.09759 g/mL to
0.08999 g/mL, while 5A zeolite sharply reduces Na+ concentration
to 0.08042 g/mL. Vermiculite exchanges more ions (0.00472 g/mL)
than 5A zeolite (0.00049 g/mL) from half an hour to an hour, and
both of these two materials all keep slightly ions exchanging up
to 24 h. 5A zeolite displays a fleeter and more powerful cation
exchange capacity in alkali solution to vermiculite, but these two
minerals both exhibit superior ability of mobile alkali cations
removal in alkaline solution which lead a potential and promising
application to AAS cements.
3.2. Removal of mobile alkali cations
The Na+ concentration leaching from AAS pastes is used to indi-
cate the mobile alkali cations removal capability of vermiculite and
5A zeolite in AAS cements. As Na-leachability test results shown in
the Fig. 6, vermiculite and 5A zeolite sharply decrease the Na+
leaching concentration at curing age of 3 d and maintain sustaining
324 X. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 146 (2017) 321–328
Fig. 5. Ions exchange ability of vermiculite and 5A zeolite in alkaline solution.
Fig. 6. Effect of vermiculite and 5A zeolite on Na-leachability of AAS pastes.
reduction at curing age of 28 d. In addition, vermiculite immobi-
lizes the more free Na+ in AAS pastes to 5A zeolite under the same
replacement content, and reaches the minimum Na+ concentration
(a) Addition of vermiculite
Fig. 7. XRD spectra of AAS pastes blended with vermiculite and 5A zeolite at curing age of 28 d.
(0.01493 g/mL) for V10 about 24% declination to C0 at curing age of
28 d. The test results indicate that the vermiculite and 5A zeolite
could effectively reduce massive unrestricted alkali metal cations
in AAS cements.
5A zeolite exchanges more Na+ than vermiculite in alkaline
solution, but removes less free Na+ than vermiculite in AAS pastes.
It is mainly attributed to the process of the mobile alkali cations
removal in AAS pastes that is significantly influenced by other
cations or ionic groups resolved from slag and constantly gener-
ated hydration products. In addition, Na+ is rather inclined in the
form of Na(H2O)+n (where n = 2–8) which is weakly bond around
Al3+ to balance electron valence state in the N-A-S-H structure
[25,26], leading hydrated sodium to more easily leach into solu-
tion. On the other hand, the hydrates C-A-S-H gels would bond a
certain amount of alkali cations which also impacts the free alkali
cations concentration in AAS pastes. Therefore, it deserves to
explore the composition and characteristics of hydration products
and further analyse reasons for distinct alkali removal performance
among these two cation exchange materials in AAS cements.
3.3. XRD analysis
Fig. 7 presents the XRD spectra of AAS pastes blended with ver-
miculite and 5A zeolite at curing age of 28 d. It displays that the
reference group C0 pastes mainly consists of two hydrated crystal
phases plombierite 14A which belongs to the C–S–H (I) group [27]
and hydrotalcite commonly appearing in AAS cements [12,28,29].
With vermiculite and 5A zeolite adding into AAS pastes, the char-
acteristic diffraction peaks of these two mineral materials are
apparently observed, revealing that these two mineral materials
remain the constant crystal structure after long-time hydration.
Comparing group V5 and V10 to C0, the diffraction peaks corre-
sponding to hydrotalcite mildly increase around 12° and 38°
2Theta shown in Fig. 7(a), indicating that more hydrotalcite phases
are formed in these specimens blended with vermiculite. Bring
magnesium based materials in AAS cements could promote to gen-
erate hydrotalcite like phases which is confirmed in other studies
[30,31]. Thus vast Mg2+ ions in the layered structure of vermiculite
exchange into AAS matrix accelerating to generate more hydrotal-
cite phases, meanwhile promoting more unrestrained alkali
cations to be absorbed into the structure of vermiculite that inter-
prets results that vermiculite immobilize more freely moved alkali
cations in AAS pastes. As shown in Fig. 7(b), the characteristic
(b) Addition of 5A zeolite
 X. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 146 (2017) 321–328
diffraction peaks of the hydration products of AAS specimens with
5A zeolite are severely influenced by the diffraction peaks of 5A
zeolite, so that it is difficult to estimate the variation of hydration
products.
3.4. Thermogravimetric analysis
The DTG/TG curves of AAS pastes mixed with vermiculite and
5A zeolite cured for 28 days are displayed in Fig. 8. In Fig. 8(a), from
room temperature to 250 °C, the weight loss is attributed to the
dehydration of C–S–H [32–34] and hydrotalcite is decomposed at
the temperature from 200 °C to 500 °C [30,35]. Furthermore 5A
zeolite loses weight at the temperature range of 200–450 °C [19]
which is obviously presented in the curve Z5 and Z10.The temper-
ature range of 600–800 °C is the decomposition range of various
carbonate-containing phases [36,37].
The vermiculite and 5A zeolite are added into AAS pastes as the
inert substitutes, so the weight losses are remarkably reducing
with increasing replacement content seen in Fig. 8(b), associating
with the less hydration products formed. Although the ignition loss
of vermiculite (13.82%) is much less than 5A zeolite (21.91%)
shown in Table 1, the total weight loss of adding vermiculite
groups is obviously greater than adding 5A zeolite groups. It shows
that the vermiculite in AAS pastes facilitate generating more
hydration products than 5A zeolite. Combined with Fig. 8(a), the
curves of V5 and V10 display a stronger peak corresponding to C-
S-H gels compared to Z5 and Z10, hence more C-S-H gels are gen-
erated in AAS pastes with vermiculite. As is known, C-S-H gels
could bind some mobile alkali cations [13], and more C-S-H gels
in adding vermiculite AAS pastes solidify more free alkalis which
also supports that vermiculite could remove more unrestrained
alkali cation to 5A zeolite in AAS pastes.
3.5. SEM and EDS analysis
Fig. 9 shows SEM images of raw material vermiculite, 5A zeolite
and AAS pastes at curing age of 28 days. The microstructure of the
raw vermiculite and 5A zeolite shown in Fig. 9(a) and (b), reveals
that vermiculite is composed of non-uniform flakes with average
diameter from approximate 1 lm to 50 lm while 5A zeolite parti-
cle exhibits well crystallized and cubic shape with uniform diame-
ter of about 5 lm.
(a) DTG
Fig. 8. TG/DTG curves for the AAS pastes cured after 28 d.
325
After 28 days hydration, AAS pastes develop dense and amor-
phous microstructure primarily consisting C–S–H gels seen in
Fig. 9(c). Some flaky raw vermiculite encompassed with many
hydration gels and a few small fibrous platelets possibly to be
hydrotalcite phases [31] are detected in Fig. 9(d) and (e). From
Fig. 9(f), many cubic 5A zeolites are uniformly scattered in the
matrix and fully surrounded with hydration products. As for
Fig. 9(g), more 5A zeolites introduced into AAS pastes lead to form
many annular crystalline substance accumulated by plenty of filmy
flaky crystal possibly to be calcium hydroxide, distinctly displayed
in Fig. 9(h).
5A zeolite in AAS pastes is tightly encompassed by many crys-
talline hydrates which would further hinder cations exchange,
while vermiculite is surrounded by many porous hydration gels
which have few influences on ions exchange. It also explains ver-
miculite fixes more mobile alkali cations due to sustaining cations
exchange.
Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) is used to deter-
mine the quantitative elemental composition of the hydration
products in many studies [28,30,38]. At least 100 points perform
on gels by EDS in every AAS samples cured for 28 days at a magni-
fication of 2000. The Si, Mg, and Al contents are used to plot the
Mg/Si vs. Al/Si ratios (Fig. 10) as described by Taylor et al. [39].
The linear relation between Mg/Si and Al/Si implies the existence
of a hydrotalcite like phase, and incorporation of Al in the C-S-H
is confirmed on the positive x-axis intercept.
The mean values of hundreds points on hydration gels are
shown in Table 2 derived from EDS point analyses. The relative
concentration of magnesium to silicon (Mg/Si) observably
increases with vermiculite to slag mass ratio, while calcium to sil-
icon ratio (Ca/Si) and sodium to silicon ratio (Na/Si) remarkably
decrease, and aluminium to silicon ratio (Al/Si) shows slight varia-
tion. Combining with obviously raising Mg/Al ratio shown in
Fig. 10(a), it suggests that Mg2+ ions significantly change the chem-
ical composition of the hydration products [30] and more hydrotal-
cite like products which merely contain magnesium phases of the
two main hydration products displayed in XRD results are created
in the matrix. However the Mg/Al ratio is well within the range
reported 1.92 to 4.35 for hydrotalcite formed in hydrated AAS
pastes [40,41]. For the pastes mixed with 5A zeolite, aluminium
to silicon ratio (Al/Si), magnesium to silicon ratio (Mg/Si) and cal-
cium to silicon ratio (Ca/Si) exhibit minor fluctuation from Table 2,
(b) TG
326 X. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 146 (2017) 321–328

(a) Vermiculite (b) 5A zeolite

(c) C0 (d) V5

(e) V10 (f) Z5

(g) Z10 (h) Z10

Fig. 9. SEM images of (a) raw material vermiculite; (b) raw material 5A zeolite; (c) C0; (d) V5; (e) V10; (f) Z5; and (g) (h) Z10, at curing age of 28 d.

indicating that vast Ca2+ ions exchanging into matrix does not C0, but with 10 percent 5A zeolite content the Na/Si increases a
substantially alter the basic chemical element of hydration gels, bit compared to V5, speculatively due to generate compact hydra-
and Mg/Al ratio tends to descend according to Fig. 10(b). In addi- tion products besieging 5A zeolite seen in the SEM image and block
tion, sodium to silicon ratio (Na/Si) significantly declines to the further cations exchanging.
 X. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 146 (2017) 321–328 327

(a) Addition of vermiculite (b) Addition of 5A zeolite

Fig. 10. Atomic ratios Mg/Si vs. Al/Si of (a) AAS pastes with addition of vermiculite at 28 days and (b) AAS pastes with addition of 5A zeolite at 28 d.

Table 2 with 5A zeolite remain decreasing in the compressive strength to

Elemental ratios of different AAS samples.
the C0.
Category Ratio Vermiculite exhibits a preferable capability of mobile alkali
Mg/Si Na/Si Al/Si Ca/Si removal in AAS pastes than 5A zeolite proved in the Section 3.2,
C0 0.39 0.69 0.61 1.51
and releases many Mg2+ into AAS matrix facilitating to generate
V5 0.44 0.63 0.61 1.46 more hydrotalcite products shown in the XRD and EDS results.
V10 0.47 0.51 0.58 1.38 Hydrotalcite phases are more voluminous than C–S–H gels, leading
Z5 0.36 0.48 0.61 1.46 to formulate a more compact structure with less porosity [42]. In
Z10 0.39 0.58 0.67 1.46
addition, there are more C-S-H gels discovered in AAS specimens
with vermiculite to 5A zeolite shown in TG-DSC results. These fac-
tors result in a denser structure to the AAS pastes blended with
3.6. Compressive strength vermiculite, contributing to the higher compressive strength. From
another aspect, abundant filmy flaky crystals formed around 5A
The effect of vermiculite and 5A zeolite on the compressive zeolite could extremely to be the weakest regions of the AAS struc-
strength of AAS pastes are shown in Fig. 11. With whatever addi- ture and intensively relates to drastic decline in compressive
tive mixing into AAS specimen all decreases the compressive strength.
strength compared to the reference group C0 at early curing age
(3 d, 7 d), and with maximum 5A zeolite replacement to slag at
4. Conclusions
mass ratio of 0.10 the compressive strength greatly declines about
10 MPa to the C0. At curing age of 28 d, the compressive strength of
This study attempts to apply cation exchange materials to mod-
adding vermiculite samples display to notably surpass the C0 with
ify the properties of AAS. Based on the results and discussions of
enhancing vermiculite substitution, while the samples blended
compressive strength development, composition, Na-leachability,
and microstructure presented above, the following conclusions
are drawn:

(1) The vermiculite and 5A zeolite could exchange abundant

alkalis metal ions in the alkaline solution. The ions exchange
process in adding 5A zeolite solution proceeds more rapidly
than adding vermiculite solution and 5A zeolite exchanges
more alkali ions to vermiculite at the same time. However
vermiculite immobilize more free Na+ ions than the5A zeo-
lite in AAS pastes, attributed to generate more hydration
products that not only absorb more unrestrained alkali
cations, but also accelerate more free alkalis exchanged into
vermiculite. Furthermore, a mass of crystalline hydrates
encircling 5A zeolite are also the barrier to exchange more
alkalis. As a result, vermiculite shows a more excellent
exchangeability and powerful solidification to mobile alkali
ions than 5A zeolite in AAS pastes.
(2) Much more important, the category of exchange ions from
cation exchange materials entering into AAS matrix deci-
sively and essentially determines the hydration products
Fig. 11. Effect of vermiculite and 5A zeolite on the compressive strength of AAS composition, microstructure and macro-mechanical beha-
pastes. viour. The primary exchange ions for vermiculite are Mg2+
328 X. Huang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 146 (2017) 321–328
ions, increasing to generate the more magnesium based
hydration products hydrotalcite which lead to form a denser
microstructure and develop the higher compressive
strength. Ca2+ ions exchanging from 5A zeolite slightly
change the chemical element composition of hydration
products in AAS pastes, but form many annular crystalline
substance accumulated by plenty of filmy flaky crystal pos-
sibly to be the vulnerable region of the AAS microstructure,
resulting in poor compressive strength.
(3) Compared to 5A zeolite, the vermiculite is more appropriate
to modify the alkali leachability and form a denser structure
in AAS pastes at the same time. However, these two typical
cation exchange materials could significantly immobilize a
part of the mobile alkali ions that are introduced as activator
into AAS, providing another idea to solve this issue, and
potentially alleviate influence of carbonation, efflorescence
and potential alkali-aggregate reaction caused by abundant
alkalis.
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