Exploring mineral–organic interactions for eco-friendly concrete alternatives: a radical concept

Peter Spencer, Hejie Li, Scott Hocknull, Gareth Chalmers and Tianfang Wang
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Abstract

Concrete is central to the civil construction industry worldwide, which is facing increasing governmental, social, and economic pressure to alleviate its considerable environmental impact. This impact centres around Portland cement, the main binder of concrete. The production of a single tonne of Portland cement generates 0.9 tonne of CO2 gas along with other negative environmental impacts. In the quest for alternate construction materials, there is much focus on artificial geopolymers which use aluminosilicate-based binders, the production of which does not liberate large amounts of CO2. However, due to the use of dangerous alkaline chemicals and high curing temperatures, industry is reluctant to implement artificial geopolymers despite their superior material properties. The research into replicating natural geopolymers appears to be in its infancy, possibly due to the underappreciated interaction between organic and mineral fractions. However, mineral–organic interactions are well researched, and the materials produced have considerably favourable properties. This work proposes the application of free radical chemistry to enhance and accelerate mineral–organic interactions to produce analogues of natural rock. The use of free radicals greatly reduces the energy requirements for reactions. They also efficiently degrade organic intermediates and promote mineral polymerisation. The benefits of these rock analogues lie not only in their material properties but also the potential re-use of waste building materials such as iron, aluminium, and glass. Therefore, the environmental impact of these materials will be substantially lower than that of concrete, with superior material properties. The implications of this study is a shift in conventional thinking away from current Portland cement-based construction materials to considering analogues of natural geopolymers.

探索矿物-有机相互作用的环保混凝土替代品:一个激进的概念
混凝土是世界范围内民用建筑行业的核心,它正面临着越来越多的政府、社会和经济压力,以减轻其对环境的巨大影响。这种影响主要集中在混凝土的主要粘合剂波特兰水泥周围。生产一吨波特兰水泥会产生0.9吨二氧化碳气体以及其他负面环境影响。在寻找替代建筑材料的过程中,人们非常关注使用铝硅酸盐基粘合剂的人工地聚合物,这种材料的生产不会释放大量的二氧化碳。然而,由于使用危险的碱性化学品和高固化温度,工业不愿意实施人工地聚合物,尽管它们具有优越的材料性能。复制天然地聚合物的研究似乎还处于起步阶段,可能是由于有机组分和矿物组分之间的相互作用未得到充分认识。然而,矿物与有机的相互作用得到了很好的研究,并且生产的材料具有相当有利的性能。这项工作提出了应用自由基化学来增强和加速矿物-有机相互作用,以产生天然岩石的类似物。自由基的使用大大降低了反应所需的能量。它们还能有效地降解有机中间体并促进矿物聚合。这些岩石类似物的好处不仅在于它们的材料特性,而且还在于铁、铝和玻璃等废弃建筑材料的潜在再利用。因此,这些材料对环境的影响将大大低于混凝土,具有优越的材料性能。这项研究的意义是传统思维的转变,从目前的波特兰水泥基建筑材料到考虑天然地聚合物的类似物。
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