Journal of Cleaner Production 254 (2020) 120149

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Journal of Cleaner Production

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

Microscopic characterizations of pervious concrete using recycled

Steel Slag Aggregate
Xueqin Chen a, Guotong Wang b, Qiao Dong c, *, Xiaokang Zhao b, Yangyang Wang d
a
Department of Civil Engineering, College of Science, Nanjing University of Science and Technology, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210094, China
b
Southeast University, 2 Southeast University Road, 521 School of Transportation, Jiangning District, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 211189, China
c
Southeast University, 2 Southeast University Road, 405 School of Transportation, Jiangning District, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 211189, China
d
Zhejiang Scientific Research Institute of Transport, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 311305, China

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

Article history: Pervious concrete using Steel Slag Aggregate (SSA) is a promising Low Impact Development (LID) and
Received 31 October 2019 sustainable pavement material solution. This study investigated the enhancing mechanism using SSA
Received in revised form instead of limestone in pervious concrete from the perspective of microscopic characterizations. Nano-
19 December 2019
indentation, Backscatter Electrons - Scanning Electron Microscope (BSE-SEM), and Energy Dispersive
Accepted 12 January 2020
Available online 13 January 2020
Spectroscopy (EDS) tests were conducted to obtain the micro-mechanical, micro-morphological and
element composition of the interfacial transition zone (ITZ) and adjacent cement paste. The nano-
Handling editor: Baoshan Huang indentation tests showed that the modulus and hardness of the ITZ in SSA pervious concrete were 44%
and 68% higher than those of limestone concrete, and the contour plots showed that ITZ thickness of SSA
Keywords: pervious concrete was around 18 mm, narrower than the 25 mm thickness of limestone samples. The BSE-
Steel slag aggregate(SSA) SEM tests showed that the ITZ of SSA pervious concrete had more hydration products and were more
Interfacial transition zone(ITZ) compacted. Specifically, denser flower-shape polyhedral crystals were observed, which was coalesced
Microscopic characterization hydration products including calcium silica hydrates (CSH), calcium hydroxide (CH) and ettringite. The
Nanoindentation test
EDS results showed that not only were the contents of silicon and calcium in ITZ of SSA pervious concrete
Scanning electron microscope
were higher, the silicon and calcium (S/C) ratio of SSA pervious concrete was also 42% higher, indicating
Energy dispersive spectroscopy
that more CSH gel was formed. Based on the change of element composition, the estimated width of the
ITZ in SSA pervious concrete was also smaller than that of the limestone sample. In all, the ITZ enhancing
mechanism of using SSA includes improved strength, reduced width and densified structure.
© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Due to the large volume material consumption of infrastructure

1.1. Background
Pervious concrete is a high porosity cement concrete using
single-size coarse aggregate and little fines. The essence of pervious
concrete pavement is its interconnected air voids and can rapidly
discharge rainwater (Schokker, 2010), improve friction in rainy
days, reduce heat island effect (Golden and Kaloush, 2006), absorb
tire noise (Marolf et al., 2004; Park et al., 2005) and purify rainwater
(Park and Tia, 2004). It is a Low Impact Development (LID) solution
and has been widely used in parking lot, roadways and etc.
construction, recycling industrial wastes in concrete has also been
demonstrated to be a LID solution by reducing natural resources
consumption as well as the landfill and pollution (Zhou et al., 2019).
Steel slag is a type of byproduct produced during the steel
manufacturing process. It can be grinded into powder and used as
supplementary materials for cement due to the high content of
amorphous SiO2 . It can also be directly used as coarse or fine
aggregate (Abu-Eishah et al., 2012; Biskri et al., 2017; Monosi et al.,
2016; Netinger et al., 2011; Roslan et al., 2016). Considering the high
LID benefit, pervious concrete incorporating Steel Slag Aggregate
(SSA) is a promising sustainable pavement system solution.

1.2. Pervious concrete including SSA

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: xueqinchen@njust.edu.cn (X. Chen), wgtseu111@163.com
(G. Wang), qiaodong@seu.edu.cn (Q. Dong), kronchd@126.com (X. Zhao), One drawback for using pervious concrete is the relatively lower
1048386064@qq.com (Y. Wang). strength due to the large interconnected air voids (15%e25%), less

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120149
0959-6526/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 X. Chen et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 254 (2020) 120149
Fig. 1. Nanoindentation grid.
cement mortar and loosely packed skeleton. When using as the
pervious concrete pavement for parking lot, low volume road or
pedestrian way, the major distress for pervious concrete is the loss
of aggregate or raveling which is mainly due to the weak bonding
between coarse aggregate. Some studies focused on evaluating its
abrasion resistance (Dong et al., 2012; Shu et al., 2011; Wu et al.,
2010). Many studies have been carried out to improve the
strength of pervious concrete by adding water reducer
(Chandrappa and Biligiri, 2016), steel fiber (Anastasiou et al., 2014),
supplementary materials such as fly ash or silica fume (Chen et al.,
2019; Saboo et al., 2019), and latex (Giustozzi, 2016; Wu et al.,
2016). Using reinforcing fiber improves the skeleton of the con-
crete. Adding water reducer and supplementary materials increase
the strength of cement mortar. Using latex can fill the micro pores
in the cement paste and also enhances the strength of cement
mortar. Therefore, stronger cement mortar is of great importance
for improving the bonding strength of pervious concrete.
When slag is used as aggregate substitution, its high surface
friction and resistance to crushing are beneficial for the perfor-
mance of concrete. Concrete incorporating SSA can achieve satis-
factory compressive and flexural strengths (Biskri et al., 2017;
Monosi et al., 2016; Netinger et al., 2011). One concern for SSA is the
high content of free-CaO/MgO which causes excessive expansion in
concrete (Abu-Eishah et al., 2012; Roslan et al., 2016). Long time or
accelerated carbonation and other measures are usually taken to
reduce the content of free-CaO/MgO and the risk of expansion
(Bodor et al., 2016). It is also found that the slag-aggregate Inter-
facial Transition Zone (ITZ) is enhanced due to the active SiO2 on
the surface of SSA which can react with CaðOHÞ2 and increase the
Fig. 2. Indent area for limestone (left) and SSA (right) pervious concrete.
bond (Arribas et al., 2015). The ITZ of basic oxygen furnace SSA is
slightly more pervious than that of electric arc furnace SSA (Brand
and Roesler, 2018). In addition, the resistance to freeze-thaw
cycling is also improved due to the hydration and increased ITZ of
SSA (Pang et al., 2016). In recent researches, SSA were added into
pervious concrete and both higher strength and satisfactory water
permeability can be achieved (El-Hassan et al., 2019; Yeih and
Chang, 2019). Pervious concrete is a heterogeneous composites
composed of aggregate, mortar, ITZ and air voids and therefore the
interfaces between different phases are critical for the performance
of the material.
However, little attention has been paid on the ITZ of pervious
concrete. Some researches aimed to improve the strength of
pervious concrete by using additives or enhancing aggregates. The
researchers believed the ITZ is improved but it still need more ar-
guments (Lori et al., 2019; Yang et al., 2020). In fact, The ITZ in
concrete is mainly determined by material properties, especially
the cement, supplementary materials and additives (Scrivener
et al., 2004) but not the gradation of aggregate. In general, Con-
crete with satisfactory properties usually has a 15e30 mm thick ITZ
while the ITZ of weaker concrete such as recycled aggregate con-
crete is 30e50 mm thick (Ko € nigsberger et al., 2013; Guo et al., 2018).
The ITZ of pervious concrete is similar but not same as that of the
traditional concrete. Therefore, it is of great interest to characterize
the microscopic properties of SSA pervious concrete to understand
the enhancing effects of SSA on ITZ.
1.3. Micro-scale characterization
The multi-scale characterization including macro, meso and
micro scales have been widely adopted to study cement compos-
ites. Generally, the macro-scale characterization treats concrete as a
homogeneous material and mainly evaluates the macroscopic
properties through laboratory tests, such as strength properties,
fatigue performance, water permeability and corrosion resistance
(Chen et al., 2019; Saboo et al., 2019). At meso-scale, concrete is
regarded as a heterogeneous material composed of aggregate,
mortar, ITZ and pores, because the macroscopic properties of ma-
terials are determined by the properties of mortar and interfaces, as
well as the shape and distribution of aggregates and pores (Cai
et al., 2019; Ding et al., 2018; Zhao et al., 2017). At micro-scale,
hydration products in cement matrix, the microstructure of
aggregate surface and the composition of ITZ can be observed,
whichfurther help to understand the properties of different phases
at meso-scale, and the mechanical properties at macro-scale
(Khedmati et al., 2018). Therefore, microscopic characterize of the
mortar and ITZ in pervious concrete is of essential to understand its
macroscopic properties.
 X. Chen et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 254 (2020) 120149
Fig. 3. Normal and invalid load-depth curves.
A number of microscopic characterization methods have been
used to characterize the mechanic, morphology and chemical
composition of cement composites. (1) The micro-mechanical
property can be characterized by nano-indentation. From the
load-displacement curve at each indentation point, the modulus
and hardness can be calculated and have been used to identify
cement mortar composition and cement hydration products
(Richardson, 2004; Xiao et al., 2013). (2) The microstructure can be
captured by X-ray Computed Tomography (CT) scanning. The dis-
tribution and morphology of aggregates and air voids in pervious
concrete can be accurately captured using the 3D X-ray CT (Long
et al., 2017). (3) The micro morphology can be characterized by
Fig. 4. Modulus and hardness at different distances to the aggregate edge.
3
Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) or Backscattered Electrons
(BSE) SEM. A number of studies have been conducted to evaluate
the morphology of surface testure for slag, micro cracks, pores and
hydration products in cement concrete (Rostami and Behfarnia,
2017). (4) The chemical elements composition can be analyzed by
Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS) or X-ray Diffraction (XRD)
methods (Faleschini et al., 2016; Jiang et al., 2018).
1.4. Objective and scope
To investigate the enhancing effect of SSA on ITZ in pervious
concrete, the micro mechanical, morphology and element compo-
sition of aggregate, ITZ and cement paste were investigated using
nanoindentation, BSE-SEM and EDS tests, respectively. Limestone
and SSA were used as the coarse aggregate. The modulus, hardness,
size, compatibility and composition of the ITZ were evaluated based
on microscopic characterization results.
2. Methods
2.1. Materials
Single sized limestone and 2-year aged SSA with particle size of
4.75e9.5 mm were selected to prepare pervious concrete samples.
Portland cement with 28-day compressive strength of 42.5 MPa
was used. Superplasticizer was added at 0.8% by the weight of
cement. Water-cement ratio was 0.29. For the target porosity of
15%, the aggregate-cement ratio was controlled at 3.8. The 28-day
compressive strength and 28-day split tensile strength of lime-
stone pervious concrete were about 18 MPa and 2 MPa, while those
of SSA pervious concrete were 24 MPa and 3 MPa approximately. In
addition, the former permeability is about 4.5 mm/s, as well as
4.0 mm/s of the latter. And the f-CaO content of SSA was 1.8%
measured by the results of Ethanol-Edta method.
2.2. Testing methods
2.2.1. Nanoindentation test
Nanoindentation technology can obtain the local micro-
mechanical properties of the materials by measuring the load on
the indenter and the penetration depth on the sample surface. The
load and depth during loading and unloading can be recorded
continuously and to calculate modulus, hardness and viscoelastic
properties (Del Bosque et al., 2017; Rossignolo et al., 2017; Sakulich
and Li, 2011). In this study, the Nano-Materials Testing System
Nano-Test-TM (Micro Materials Company, USA) was used for grid
nanoindentation test.
The preparation process of nanoindentation test specimens was
4 X. Chen et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 254 (2020) 120149
Fig. 5. Contour plot of indentation modulus and hardness.
as follows: Firstly, 20 mm thick slices were taken from the pervious
concrete and 10 mm  10 mm slices with a thickness of 5e10 mm
were then cut from the 20 mm thick slices with a diamond saw. The
slices were dried in an oven at 105  C for 24 h to remove moisture
and then put into a 15 mm  15 mm  15 mm rubber mold. Epoxy
was injected into the rubber mold to coat the slices. Then, slices
were taken out and polished multiple time. The accuracy of
nanoindentation tests can be influenced by many factors such as
the micro-pores and micro-cracks in cement matrix and the
porosity on the surface of aggregate. Due to the strict requirement
on the smoothness of specimen surface, coating slices with epoxy
resin and polishing are of great importance (Xiao et al., 2013).
Emery papers with different grit sizes including 120 mm, 61 mm,
23 mm, 11 mm and 6.4 mm were used to polish the specimens. After
each 3 min polishing with different size emery papers, the W2.5
(1.4 mm) diamond spray polishing agent was utilized to polish the
samples for 20 min. The whole polishing operation was conducted
with an automatic polishing machine to keep the top and bottom
surfaces parallel. In particular, the surface needs to be lubricated
and cooled with water. Polished samples were then cleaned in an
ultrasonic cleaner to remove all dust and diamond particles, and
then dried in an oven at 75  C for 12 h.
An area including aggregate, ITZ and paste matrix was selected
for indentation test as shown in Fig. 1. The indentation area was
50 mm  100 mm. Spacing between each indent was 10 mm to avoid
influence from adjacent indentations. Since the thickness of ITZ is
generally 20e60 mm, the indentation area covered aggregate, ITZ
and paste matrix. Additionally, the selected interface between
cement matrix and aggregate should be straight, dense, flat and no
cracking. Indentation depth is of critical to evaluate cement com-
posites. If the indentation depth is too small, it will be hard to
differentiate phases. If the indentation depth is too large, the results
will only show the overall performance of the composites. Ac-
cording to previous findings (Brown et al., 2018), the initial load
was 0.05 mN and the increasing rate was 0.1 mN/s. The maximum
load was 2 mN and lasted for 10 s, followed by a 20 s unloading
process. The maximum indentation depth was from 150 nm to
450 nm, which can be considered as a rational range scope for
cementitious materials.
2.2.2. BSEM and EDS test
BSE-SEM obtains the mm to nm scale image from the beam
electrons that are reflected from the sample by elastic scattering.
Chemical components of high electron density have high
X. Chen et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 254 (2020) 120149 5

Fig. 6. BSE-SEM images of SSA and limestone.

Fig. 7. BSE-SEM images of ITZ.

6 X. Chen et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 254 (2020) 120149
Fig. 8. Microscopic images for EDS spot and line scanning.
backscatter coefficients, and appear bright in the images. The
cement hydration products usually have lower electron density
with lower backscatter coefficients and appear less bright
(Diamond, 2004). BSE-SEM has been used to characterize the
chemical composition of phases in cement pastes (Jiang et al., 2019;
Rossen and Scrivener, 2017). EDS is a chemical characterization
method based on the interaction of X-ray excitation and the ma-
terial since each element has a unique atomic structure allowing a
unique set of peaks on its electromagnetic emission spectrum. It is
usually coupled with SEM and also widely used to analyze the
composition of ITZ and paste matrix (Nguyen et al., 2019; Szela˛ g,
2019).
The samples used in this study were about 1 cm3 in size, and the
surface was coated by AuePd to enhance the conductivity. It is
noted that the sample must be dried before coating to reduce
interference. The FEI Inspect F50 SEM-EDS system was utilized to
conduct the test. Point- and line-scanning were conducted to
obtain the element composition and variation with location. The
microstructure and chemical composition of SSA and limestone
pervious concrete can be compared.
3. Results and discussions
3.1. Nanoindentation test
The nanoindentation test area covered aggregate, ITZ, and
cement paste as shown in Fig. 2. To ensure the quality of test results,
the sample surface should be smooth, straight and free from de-
fects. The micro-pore, defects or impurities within the indentation
area caused abnormal load-depth curves which could not be used
for modulus and hardness calculation. Fig. 3 shows the normal and
two invalid load-depth curves. In Fig. 3 (b), the flat area at the
beginning of loading was mainly due to the unstable contact be-
tween the indenter and the surface. In Fig. 3 (c), the shoulder shape
was due to the fracture and collapse of surrounding solids, leading
to the sharp increase in depth.
After eliminating a few of abnormal data points, the indentation
modulus and hardness of each effective indentation were calcu-
lated according to the Oliver and Pharr methods (Brown et al.,
2018). Fig. 4 shows the average modulus and hardness at
different distance to the aggregate edge for both SSA and limestone
pervious concrete. Generally, aggregate has highest modulus and
hardness, followed by cement paste and ITZ, based on which the
width of ITZ could also be estimated. It can be clearly seen that the
modulus and hardness of ITZ in SSA concrete were higher than
those of limestone concrete. Using SSA, the average modulus of ITZ
was improved by 44%, from 25 GPa to 36 GPa, and the average
hardness was improved by 63%, from 1.1 GPa to 1.8 GPa. The
modulus and hardness of cement paste adjacent to the ITZ were
also improved by 16% and 18%, respectively. The significant
improvement of the modulus and the hardness indicates that the
active cementitious material on the surface of SSA hydrated and
enhanced the ITZ. In addition, the thickness of ITZ in SSA pervious
concrete was about 18 mm, narrower than that of limestone
pervious concrete at about 25 mm, which also indicated a more
compacted cement paste near the surface of aggregate and the
enhancing effects of SSA. Further, the modulus and hardness of SSA
were also higher than those of limestone.
Fig. 5 shows the contour plot of modulus and hardness from
nanoindentation tests. The red area representing higher modulus
or hardness. The left red area with high modulus and hardness
represents the aggregate, the middle blue area with low modulus
and hardness represents ITZ, and the right green area with mod-
erate modulus and hardness represents paste matrix. It can be
clearly seen that the ITZ of SSA concrete was narrower than that of
limestone concrete. It can also be seen that the transition of
modulus and hardness between aggregate and ITZ are more sig-
nificant indicated as parallel contour lines, while the transition
between ITZ and paste matrix shows an irregular shape. It is related
to the heterogeneity of cement and calcium ion migration effect in
ITZ (Prokopski and Halbiniak, 2000).
From the results of nanoindentation test, it can be seen that not
only were the mechanical performance of ITZ and adjacent cement
paste enhanced by SSA, the compatibility of ITZ was also improved
indicated as reduced width. There are two reasons for the
enhancing effect of SSA. Firstly, the cementitious materials on the
surface SSA hydrated. Secondly, the rough texture, pores and an-
gularity on the surface of SSA also improved the bonding between
SSA and paste matrix.
3.2. Microscopic morphology
Fig. 6 shows the microscopic morphology of limestone and SSA
obtained from BSE-SEM. It can be clearly seen that the SSA has
rougher surface texture and more micro pores which could
improve the bonding with cement paste, while the limestone has
smoother surface and few pores.
Fig. 7 shows the microscopic images at the ITZ obtained from
BSE-SEM, which shows the material morphology and provides
evidence of cement hydration products. Cement hydration prod-
ucts mainly include Calcium Silicate Hydrate (CSH), Calcium Hy-
droxide (CH), and aluminum sulfate hydrate including ettringite
 X. Chen et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 254 (2020) 120149
(AFt), and monosulfide hydrated aluminum sulfate (AFm). AFt, AFm
and CH are needle-shape, rod-shape and plate-shape crystals
respectively while CSH is an amorphous-like gel. AFt, AFm and CH
cannot form compacted and stable structure, while CSH can
incorporate fibers and aggregates to form a cluster structure and is
the main contributor of the strength of concrete.
It can be seen from Fig. 7 (a) that the cement paste is mainly
composed of clusters of CSH gel, and the ITZ includes more needle-
shape AFt and plate-shape CH crystals. The micro structure of ITZ is
loose due to the irregular arrangement of the crystals with more
voids, and lack of cohesion due to less CSH gel. Therefore, the
compatibility and strength of ITZ is significantly lower. It also noted
that the SSA pervious concrete has less needle-shape crystals but
more flower-shape polyhedral crystals in the ITZ area and adjacent
paste matrix. The active SiO2 and CaO on the surface of SSA hy-
drated and formed CSH. The dispersed CSH then coalesced with CH
and Aft into actinomorphic crystals, forming a denser, regular and
highly packed micro structure. Fig. 7 (b) shows the 10000x
magnification images, focusing the cavity region in ITZ. It can also
be seen that the microstructure of SSA pervious concrete is more
compacted than that of limestone.
In fact, the flower-shape polyhedral crystals is rare in cement
concrete. Some researcher added graphene oxide (GO) nanosheet
into cement paste to induce hydration products to form crystals and
similar flower-shape crystals were found (Lv et al., 2018). Therefore,
it is estimated that the metal oxides in SSA coalesced AFm, AFt, CSH
and CH to form hydration polyhedral crystals by weaving,
Fig. 9. Element composition at ITZ obtained from EDS spot scanning.
7
penetrating and embedding each other.
3.3. EDS analysis
EDS coupled with BSE-SEM was adopted to investigate the
distribution of chemical elements in the ITZ. Two spot scanning and
line scanning were performed on each sample. The first spot
scanning was used to roughly calibrate the measurement position,
and the second spot scanning focused on the ITZ for chemical el-
ements quantitative analysis. The line scanning was then per-
formed covering aggregate, ITZ, and paste matrix, so as to observe
the changes of chemical elements. Fig. 8 shows the test area for the
two samples.
Due to the water film on the aggregate surface during concrete
mixing, calcium ions tends to migrate to aggregate surface and
more CH crystals generate in ITZ. However, the CSH is the major
contributor of concrete strength through adhesion, and excessive
CH crystal accumulation will lead to a decrease in strength
(Prokopski and Halbiniak, 2000). High ratio of silica to calcium (S/C)
indicates more CSH content, less difference between ITZ and paste
matrix and stronger bond between aggregate and cement paste.
Therefore, the S/C ratio was used as a rational indicator of the
performance in ITZ.
Fig. 9 shows the element concentration obtained from the EDS
spot scanning at ITZ. Clearly, the contents of silicon and calcium in
the ITZ of limestone pervious concrete were only about 82% and
75% of those of SSA. The S/C ratio of SSA pervious concrete was 0.17,
8 X. Chen et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 254 (2020) 120149
lower than that of limestone at 0.12. The higher S/C ratio at the ITZ
of SSA indicated that more CSH gel was formed in the ITZ, implying
that active SiO2 on the surface of SSA hydrated. This observation is
consistent with the increased strength obtained through nano-
indentation tests, and the compacted structure observed from the
BSE-SEM images.
Fig. 10 shows the variation of elements composition in desig-
nated area through line scanning. Limestone contains little silicon
while SSA contains silicon. In both limestone and SSA, the content
of calcium is higher than silicon. The content of silicon in cement
paste is significantly higher than that in aggregate. Therefore, the
dramatic change of these two elements can be used to identify the
interfaces for aggregate, ITZ and paste matrix. Increasing S/C ratio
indicates approaching cement paste, while decreasing S/C ratio
indicates approaching aggregate. In Fig. 10 (a), limestone is on the
left side of the sample. At around 20 mm, calcium content decreased
rapidly, indicating leaving the limestone. From 20 mm to 35 mm, all
elements decreased indicating a void. From 30 mm to 36 mm, the
increase of calcium content may be caused by an impurity. From
39 mm to 49 mm, the rapid increase of silica content indicated
approaching the paste matrix. The ITZ width can be estimated as
about 25 mm for the limestone sample. In Fig. 10 (b), SSA was on the
right side of the sample. From 33 mm to 20 mm, calcium content
Fig. 10. Variation of elements composition obtained from EDS line scanning.
decreased rapidly, indicating leaving the SSA. At the same region,
silica content increased rapidly, indicating approaching the paste
matrix. The ITZ width can be estimated to be around 13 mm for the
SSA sample. Therefore, the EDS line scanning results also showed
more compacted ITZ of SSA sample.
4. Conclusion
As a sustainable pavement material solution, it is of great in-
terests to understand the enhancing mechanism of using SSA in
pervious concrete. Based on the nanoindentation, BSE-SEM, and
EDS tests, the microscopic mechanical, morphological and element
composition of the aggregate surface, ITZ and adjacent cement
paste were evaluated. Findings from those tests valid each other
and consistent conclusions can be drawn as follows:
1. Results of the nanoindentation tests showed that aggregate has
highest modulus and hardness, followed by cement paste and
ITZ. Generally, the modulus and hardness of the ITZ in SSA
concrete were 44% and 68% higher than those of limestone
concrete, while the modulus and hardness of the adjacent
cement paste were 16% and 18% higher. The contour plots
showed that ITZ thickness of SSA pervious concrete was around
 X. Chen et al. / Journal of Cleaner Production 254 (2020) 120149
18 mm, narrower than the 25 mm thickness of limestone con-
crete. Both the improved strength and reduce size indicated the
enhancing effects of SSA.
2. The micro-morphology obtained from the BSE-SEM tests
showed that the ITZ and adjacent paste matrix of SSA pervious
concrete had more hydration products and were more com-
pacted. Specifically, denser flower-shape polyhedral crystals
were observed, which was coalesced CSH, CH and Aft. CSH was
the hydration product of the active SiO2 and CaO on the surface
of SSA.
3. The EDS spot scanning results showed that not only were the
contents of silicon and calcium in ITZ of SSA pervious concrete
were higher, but the S/C ratio of SSA pervious concrete was 42%
higher than that of in limestone, indicating that more CSH gel
was formed, implying that active SiO2 on the surface of SSA
hydrated. The EDS line scanning results can be used to estimate
different phases in cement concrete based on the change of
element composition. The results also showed that the width of
the ITZ in SSA pervious concrete was around 13 mm, smaller than
the 25 mm of limestone, indicating more compacted ITZ of SSA
sample.
In all, the three microscopic characterization tests showed the
enhancing on ITZ when using SSA in pervious concrete. The
nanoindentation test results showed increased mechanical per-
formance and lower thickness of ITZ enhanced by SSA. BSE-EDS
results showed denser hydration products and structure in ITZ.
EDS results further proved the denser structure and lower thick-
ness based on the element composition. There are both physical
and chemical reasons for the enhancing mechanism. The pores,
angularities and rough surface texture of SSA improved the
bonding physically. Moreover, the cementitious ingredients on the
surface of SSA hydrated and improved the bonding chemically.
Author contribution section
Xueqin Chen: Study conception and design, Drafting of manu-
script, Analysis and interpretation of data, Qiao Dong, Drafting of
manuscript, Study conception and design, Guotong Wang: Acqui-
sition of data, Xiaokang Zhao: Acquisition of data. Yangyang Wang:
Critical revision.
Declaration of competing interest
No conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgement
This study is sponsored by the projects found by the Jiangsu
Natural Science Foundation under Grant No. BK20181279, the
Zhejiang natural science foundation under Grant No.
LQY18E080001, the National natural science foundation of China
(NSFC) under Grant No. 51978163, and the Fundamental Research
Funds for the Central Universities under Grant No. 2242019k1G009
and 30919011249, to which the authors are very grateful.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.120149.
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