Investigation on effect of CO2 curing on cement hydration

In this study, CO2 curing was applied to cement pastes at different w/c ratios and curing times. Setting times, unit volume weights and compressive strengths of 1, 7 and 28 days of the cured cement pastes were determined. During the mixing of the cement pastes, carbon curing was done for 1, 2, 3 and 5 minutes. As a result of CO2 curing, the setting start and end times shortened for all w/c ratios. The correlation value between unit volume weight and compressive strength was determined as 97%. An increase of approximately 8% was observed in all w/c ratios in 1 minute curing, both in compressive strengths and unit volume weights. In 2 minutes curing, approximately 5% decrease in low w/c rates (23% and 27%) and 5% increase in 30% w/c rate were observed. When the curing time exceeded 2 minutes, a decrease was observed in both unit volume weights and compressive strengths. In the microstructure analysis, it was observed that the voids in the microstructures of the samples with high compressive strength and unit volume weight were reduced by carbon cure products. The fact that the analysis results of the produced samples support each other and that there is no study related to carbon curing during the mixing in the literature research reveals the importance of this study. Keywords: Hydration, Carbon curing, CO2, Compressive strength