Students from the Islamic Azad University of Abhar in the northwestern Zanjan Province have developed a special type of nano cement, used for the production of ultra-high performance concrete, Mehr News Agency reported.
The young innovators have developed the capability to produce nano-silica particles, nano-sodium particles, nanoparticles of calcium carbonate and organic nano-pesticides at laboratory scale while production at an industrial scale requires financial support.
The new procedure uses ordinary Portland cement type II and turns it to nano cement through mechanical abrasion in a nodular grinder. Tests have shown that the concrete made from nano cement has mechanical strength and resistance at least twice that of concrete made from ordinary cement. Moreover, less nano cement is required compared with ordinary cement for construction of concrete sections of similar strength.
Developing cement with nanoparticles is based on the reactions that occur during the formation of concrete, said Ali Moradzadeh, a member of the technical team that developed nano cement.
“Water causes the concrete to harden through a process called hydration, in which cement particles react with water and form a paste that binds the aggregates. In the normal hydration process, only the surface of cement particles, which are usually a few micrometers in size, react with water, Therefore, through the process of grinding, cement particles are reduced in size to less than 100 nanometers in nano cement to increase reactivity with water,” Moradzadeh added.
Nano cement is the first of its kind in the world, said Moradzadeh, noting that a number of companies have in recent years presented nano cement but they only contained nano-additives rather than having nano-sized cement particles.
The new cement can replace ordinary cement for construction of high-strength concrete sections. But the main challenge for the technical team is to find the financial support to commercialize the product.
