Insights into the hydration kinetics, microstructure and early strength of Portland cement containing synthetic C-S-H/PCE nanocomposites

Synthetic C-S-H/PCE nanocomposites are outstanding seeding additives to promote the early performances of Portland cement. For an extensive application of the seeding material, it is essential to understand the fundamentals of hydration, microstructure, and early strength of cement with the nanocomposites. In this study, the hydration process and microstructural evolution of cement pastes containing hydrothermal synthesized C-S-H/PCE were quantitatively analyzed by ¹H low-field nuclear magnetic resonance and backscattered electron microscopy. The critical roles of the C-S-H/PCE during the dissolution of clinker, nucleation and growth of hydration products, and microstructural development of pastes were identified. Well-trained artificial neural networks (ANN) were employed to predict the early strength of pastes from synthesis parameters of C-S-H/PCE. Satisfactory predictions were obtained that the ANN modeling provides effective guidelines to tune C-S-H/PCE properties and early strength of cement.