Hydration characteristics of tricalcium aluminate in the presence of nano-silica

Tricalcium aluminate (C₃A) is the most reactive component of the Portland cement and its hydration has an important impact on the workability and early strength of concrete. Recently, nanomaterials such as nano-silica (nano-SiO₂) have attracted much attention in cement-based materials because of its pozzolanic reactivity and the pore-filling effect. However, its influence on the hydration of C₃A needs to be well understood. In this study, the hydration kinetics of C₃A mixed with different percentages of nano-SiO₂ were studied and compared with pure C₃A. The hydration products were examined by different characterization techniques including XRD, XPS, and NMR spectroscopy and isothermal calorimetry analyses. The XRD results showed that the addition of nano-SiO₂ promoted the conversion of the intermediate product C₄AH₁₃. The isothermal calorimetry results showed that the addition of nano-SiO₂ significantly reduced the hydration exotherm rate of C₃A from 0.34 to less than 0.1 mW/g. With the presence of nano-SiO₂, the peaks for Q¹ were observed in ²⁹Si MAS-NMR measurements, and the content of Q¹ increased from 6.74% to 30.6% when the nano-SiO₂ content increased from 2 wt.% to 8 wt.%, whereas the proportion of Q⁴ gradually decreased from 89.1% to 63.6%. These results indicated a pozzolanic reaction provoked by the nano-SiO₂ combined with aluminate structures generating C-A-S-H gel.