Suitability of BS EN 197-1 CEM II and CEM V cement for production of low carbon concrete

• CEM II and CEM V cement concretes reduce the ECO2 and cost of concrete.
• Silica fume is an effective additional cementitious constituent in producing concrete with lower ECO2.
• FA utilisation reduced workability over time significantly.
• CEM II/B-M cement concretes with higher w/c ratios indicated improved pore structure.
• There is a potential to use CEM II and CEM V cement concretes in structural applications.

The environmental destruction of global warming as a result of excessive releasing carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere through burning of fossil fuels is of significant interest to scientific community as well as decision makers and general public worldwide. Electricity generation, transportation, industrial activities and land use changes have been identified as the main contributors. On the other hand, it is widely reported that the concrete industry contributes around 7% to total global CO2 emissions and Portland cement (PC) accounts for 90% of this. A number of researches have been undertaken to address this issue and over the past few years‘ industry have successfully implemented a series of innovative techniques for minimising its environmental impact quite successfully. The concrete construction industry is continued to put a greater emphasis on adopting more sustainable practices. In keeping with this, reported work was carried out to assess the environmental impact of BS EN 197-1 binary and ternary cement concretes and thus their suitability for use in low carbon concrete construction.Results of this research show that the use of binary and ternary cements has a potential to reduce overall embodied CO2 (ECO2) emissions and cost in equal design strength concrete. Studies investigating engineering (compressive cube and cylinder compressive strength, flexural strength, drying shrinkage) and durability properties (initial surface absorption, carbonation) were found to provide comparable and improved results comparing to conventional PC concrete mixes design for equal strength.