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Influence of kaolinite content in coal-series metakaolin and soft metakaolin on the performance of cement blends with and without limestone

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Abstract

Cement blend with calcined clay and limestone is a promising approach to achieve sustainability. Besides conventional soft clay, coal-series gangue (a major solid waste in the coal mining industry) can also be calcined to substitute cement. This study aims to study and compare the influence of the coal-series metakaolin (CMK) and soft metakaolin (SMK) as well as their kaolinite content (represented by purity level) on the performance of cement blended with and without the presence of limestone. Reactivity tests show that SMK has higher pozzolanic reactivity than CMK, thus leading to a higher compressive strength. However, with limestone addition, a comparable 28-day compressive strength was noticed for both CMK and SMK blends for a given purity level, probably due to a higher reaction degree of limestone with CMK, resulting in more formation of hemi-and mono-carboaluminates that can compensate the lesser pozzolanic effect of CMK. In terms of metakaolin purity level effect, the highest compressive strength was recorded when the purity level reached 80%. This study sheds light on the application of both coal-series metakaolin and soft metakaolin with limestone as promising supplementary cementitious materials to be mixed with cement.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Hunan University, China.

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  1. College of Civil Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, 410082, China

    Yuanlan Zhang, Yuxuan Liu, Lufan Li & Tung-Chai Ling

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  1. Yuanlan Zhang
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Correspondence to Tung-Chai Ling.

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Zhang, Y., Liu, Y., Li, L. et al. Influence of kaolinite content in coal-series metakaolin and soft metakaolin on the performance of cement blends with and without limestone. Mater Struct 55, 115 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1617/s11527-022-01960-6

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