Construction and Building Materials 135 (2017) 129–136

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Effects of the fineness of limestone powder and cement on the hydration

and strength development of PLC concrete
Gyu Don Moon, Sungwoo Oh, Sang Hwa Jung, Young Cheol Choi ⇑
High-Tech Construction Materials Center, Korea Conformity Laboratories, Seoul, South Korea

h i g h l i g h t s

 Limestone powder accelerated cement hydration by providing nucleation site.

 Limestone addition up to 15 wt% improved the compressive strength compared to Plain by formation of new hydration products.
 Large surface area of cement clinker is more effective to enhance the strength than that of limestone powder.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Portland limestone cement (PLC) have been widely used in the world because of its environmental
Received 2 September 2016 impact, which is less carbon dioxide emissions by using less amount of cement clinkers. Moreover,
Received in revised form 24 November 2016 formation of monocarboaluminates as fillers in cement can improve dense concrete microstructures by
Accepted 29 December 2016
reacting with C3A. Also, larger nucleation sites from limestone powder can enhance strengths due to
the active cement hydration. Thus, in this study, the effects of the fineness and replacement of limestone
powder on the hydration and strength properties of concrete were investigated by X-ray diffraction
Keywords:
(XRD), setting times, isothermal calorimetry, compressive strength and mercury intrusion porosimetry
Limestone powder
Cement hydration
techniques. The obtained results showed that the addition of limestone powder accelerated cement
Surface area hydration by providing nucleation sites for the hydration products, and as a result, the fineness of cement
Isothermal calorimetry and limestone powder strongly influenced on the hydration reaction and the strength development.
Microstructure Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction tion and setting times, heat evolution, microstructures as well as

effects of particle size distribution on the mechanical properties
Cement and concrete, the two most widely used construction of PLC concrete. The study of the hydration kinetics and compres-
materials, often causes major environmental problems due to the sive strength of the PLC paste and mortars produced by various
large amounts of CO2 emission produced during their manufactur- curing methods revealed that the negative effect of cement dilu-
ing. In order to reduce the CO2 emission level, multiple researches tion on the mechanical properties of the obtained mortars caused
on the mineral addition of ground granulated blast-furnace slag, by the limestone powder addition could be alleviated by the
fly ash, silica fume, or limestone powder to ordinary Portland cement increase in limestone powder fineness [6].
(OPC) have been conducted. In particular, limestone powder is Since increasing the fineness of limestone powder results in a
widely used as a mineral admixture in concrete because of its natural greater number of nucleation sites, the hydration reaction of
availability as well as technical and economic advantages [1,2]. tri-calcium silicate (C3S), a major component of Portland cement,
The effects of limestone powder addition on the hydration and can be accelerated by the presence of limestone powder [7–9],
strength properties of OPC have been studied by various research while other cement hydration reactions remain limited [10]. In
groups, which found that its presence increased the hydration rate other words, the surface of limestone filler particles plays an
of Portland cement during early age stages [3,4]. In addition, Port- important role in providing nucleation sites for the precipitation
land Cement Association [5] provided the research on the hydra- of hydration products. The sites from the limestone powder were
able to reduce the energy barrier and can promote hydration
⇑ Corresponding author at: High-Tech Construction Materials Center, Korea product formation much faster from the pore solution [11].
Conformity Laboratories, 199 Gasan Digital 1-ro, Geumcheon-gu, Seoul, South In addition, the use of fillers with large surface areas can lead to
Korea. low capillary porosity and thus increase the compressive strength
E-mail address: [email protected] (Y.C. Choi).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2016.12.189
0950-0618/Ó 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
130 G.D. Moon et al. / Construction and Building Materials 135 (2017) 129–136

[12]. Stark et al. [8] found that the addition of 6 wt% of limestone 12 100
powder significantly affected the hydration of the main cement PC1
components, which are C3S, tricalcium aluminate (C3A), and PC2
10
80

Cumulative volume [%]

tetra-calcium alumino-ferrite (C4AF) as well as the early cement
strength measured during the first 4 days. Lecomte et al. [4] inves-
8

Volume [%]
tigated the effect of grinding on the properties of PLC and found 60
that adding limestone filler increased material sorptivity and chan-
6
ged porosity characteristics.
In order to extend the application of PLC in the cement and con- 40
crete industry, various studies on the concrete using limestone 4
powder have been recently conducted. Various PLC mix propor-
20
tions were provided with the test results such as mechanical and 2
physical properties of samples [13]. Blending GGBFS and limestone
powder was used to improve PLC hydration with various mix pro- 0 0
portions [14]. In order to investigate the contribution of limestone 1 10 100
for the cement hydration, calorimetric analysis was used with Particle diameter [μm]
defined M-values [15]. (a) cement
However, only few researches for practical use such as large
amount of limestone powder use in concrete have been conducted. 15 100
Generally, the compressive strength and other mechanical proper- LP1
ties of PLC containing more than 15 wt% of limestone powder were LP2
12 80

Cumulative volume [%]

lower than those of OPC concrete.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of fineness
of limestone powder and cement on the physical properties of PLC Volume [%] 9 60
to obtain the efficient mix proportions of PLC in this study.

6 40
2. Experiment
3 20
2.1. Materials

ASTM Type I Portland cement (PC1) was used as plain cement in 0 0

this study. Its mineralogical composition calculated using the 1 10 100
Bogue formula was 53.9 wt% of C3S, 19.8 wt% of di-calcium silicate Particle diameter [μm]
(C2S), 5.9 wt% of C3A, and 10.3 wt% of C4AF, and the surface area (b) limestone powder
and density of PC1 were 345 m2/kg and 3142 kg/m3, respectively.
The utilized limestone powder (LP1) contained 96.9 wt% of CaCO3, Fig. 1. Particle size distributions of materials used.
while its density was equal to 2810 kg/m3. Both the cement and
limestone powder components were ground by using a ball mill. 2.2. Mixture proportions and methods
The surface areas of the resulting fine cement (PC2) and limestone
powder (LP2) were 444 m2/kg and 5980 m2/kg, respectively. The The utilized mixture proportions for concrete are shown in
chemical composition and physical properties of all materials used Table 2. The addition of 15 wt%, 25 wt% and 35 wt% of limestone
in this work are summarized in Table 1. powder as well as the fineness of cement and limestone powder
Both fine and coarse aggregates used in this study were com- was investigated to evaluate the effect of limestone powder on
plied with ASTM C33. The saturated surface dry (SSD) density of the hydration reaction and strength development. The water-to-
the utilized coarse aggregates was 2600 kg/m3, while their maxi- binder ratio, binder content, and coarse-to-fine aggregate weight
mum size was 25 mm. The fine aggregates were placed inside an ratio were fixed to 0.47, 360 kg/m3, and 1.27, respectively. A super-
oven heated to a temperature of 105 °C for 24 h in order to achieve plasticizer of the polycarboxylate type was used to obtain a slump
the SSD density of 2700 kg/m3 before concrete mixing. The particle with a desired size (150 mm). Binders including cement and lime-
size distributions of the utilized cement and limestone powder, stone powder were premixed for 30 min by using a V-type mixer.
which were obtained by laser diffraction, are shown in Fig. 1. The Concrete specimens for the compressive strength test were cast
particle size distributions of the raw materials were measured by in cylindrical molds with sizes of 100  200 mm for 24 h followed
laser diffraction from Beckman Coulter LS 230. Wet analysis using by de-molding and curing in water at a temperature of 20 ± 1 °C.
ethanol was conducted by the instrumental analysis for the size Compressive strength tests were conducted in accordance with
particle distribution. the ISO 1920-4 standard after aging for 3, 7, and 28 days.

Table 1
Chemical and physical properties of cement and limestone powder.

Chemical composition (wt%) Density (kg/m3) Surface area(m2/kg)

SiO2 Al2O3 Fe2O3 CaO MgO SO3 Blaine BET
PC1 21.1 4.4 3.4 62.7 2.3 2.3 3142 345
PC2 21.2 4.3 3.3 62.8 2.5 2.2 3189 444
LP1 1.3 0.7 0.9 54.3 1.0 0.4 2810 1040
LP2 1.1 0.8 0.9 54.7 0.9 0.4 2887 5980
 G.D. Moon et al. / Construction and Building Materials 135 (2017) 129–136 131

Table 2
Mixture proportions of concretes.

W/B (%) Air content (%) Water (kg/m3) Component (kg/m3) Aggregate (kg/m3)
PC1 PC2 LP1 LP2 Fine Coarse
Plain 47 5 160 340 – – – 798 1702
LL15 288 – 52 –
LL25 255 – 85 –
LL35 221 – 119 –
HL15 288 – – 52
HL35 221 – – 119
HCLL15 – 288 52 –
HCLL35 – 221 119 –

XRD analysis was performed by using a Miniflex 600 instru- C P : Portlandite

ment from Rigaku with an attached X’Celerator detector. All XRD C3 E : Ettringite
scans were conducted in the 2h angle range between 5° and 65°. C2 M : Monocarboaluminate
Setting times of paste specimens were established in accor- C 3 : Tricalcium silicate
dance with the EN 196-3 by using an automatic cement setting test C 2 : Dicalcium silicate
machine (ACMEL Labo), which eight independent stations of the C : Calcite
testing instrument can be operated simultaneously. A needle with Q : Quartz
P
a known standardized weight was released over cement and lime- P
stone cement paste after various intervals during setting. Q C3
P
Isothermal calorimetry is a widely used method for evaluating P C C2 C C C
C2 C P C2
C3 C P LL35 P
2
the hydration progress of cement and limestone powders. In this QC
M E 3 C P
study, total 40 g of binders, cement and limestone powder, were E
mixed with 20 g of water for 30 s using a glass rod. Afterwards,
glass vials were filled with approximately 4 g of each paste, and
their weights were evaluated. The sealed vials were then loaded LL25
into a calorimeter, TAM Air by TA Instruments, in order to measure
heat flow (W) and cumulative heat (J) values.
Mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) was conducted by using
Autopore IV 9500 from Micromeritics to determine porosity after LL15
aging for 28 days, which the mercury surface tension and contact
angle were 485 dynes/cm and 130°, respectively. Paste specimens
were used to obtain accurate results, and 3 spherical specimens
with 0.5 mm diameter were filled in the penetrometer. The speci- Plain
mens were dried at 40 °C for 24 h. The mix proportions of the paste
were identical with Table 2 except for the aggregate additions.
5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65
2θ [degree]
3. Results and discussion
Fig. 2. XRD patterns obtained for various pastes after 28 days.
3.1. XRD analysis
increase in the added limestone content. However, the obtained
The hydration products of the limestone-containing paste
values satisfied both the European standard EN 197-1, which con-
obtained after 28 days of aging were investigated by XRD as shown
tains cement composition, specifications, and conformity criteria
in Fig. 2. According to the obtained results, various hydrates, such
for common cements.
as Ca(OH)2, ettringite and anhydrous phases, C3S, and C2S, were
The addition of limestone powder apparently decreased the set-
detected. Also, a monocarboaluminate was observed for the LL35,
ting time for the studied pastes. In particular, the initial and final
LL25, and LL15 mixtures and not for plain concrete. Limestone pow-
setting times for the LL35 mixture decreased by 23.9% and 15.3%,
ders affect the cement hydration by reacting with C3A to form car-
as compared with those for plain cement. The observed reduction
boaluminates [16]. The monocarboaluminate hydrates can
in setting times with an increase in the limestone powder content
enhance strength as fillers in pore spaces in the matrix. Thus, it can
can be attributed to the acceleration of the hydration reactions of
be concluded that monocarboaluminates were formed by reaction
C3S and C3A during early aging stages, which led to the formation
of limestone powder and cement and improve strength and mini-
of such hydration products as calcium silicate hydrate (C S H)
mize porosity [17]. Plain concrete is the concrete mixing with PC1,
and carboaluminates [18,19].
which is OPC, and fine and coarse aggregates. As the replacement
The HL15 and HL35 mixtures with high fineness of added lime-
of limestone powder increased, peak intensities of unhydrated Cal-
stone powder exhibited faster setting times as compared to those
cite(CaCO3) and Quartz(SiO2) were also increased. From the results,
for plain cement. However, the obtained results were similar to
some limestone powders in PLC were used to form new hydration
the data for the LL15 and LL35 samples with small surface areas.
products. Increasing amount of limestone powder replacement can
According to the previous study, the setting times of cement pastes
remain the unhydrated limestone powders in the matrix.
do not significantly depend on the surface areas of the limestone
3.2. Setting time testing powder component [20]. The setting times of the pastes containing
high-fineness cement (HCLL15 and HCLL35) were lower than those
The results of the setting time testing are listed in Table 3. The of the pastes with limestone powder with large surface area
magnitudes of the initial and final setting times decreased with an because the cement hydration reaction was accelerated by the
132 G.D. Moon et al. / Construction and Building Materials 135 (2017) 129–136

Table 3
Setting times of pastes.

Setting time (min) Plain LL15 LL25 LL35 HL15 HL35 HCLL15 HCLL35
Initial 255 238 222 194 236 182 159 146
Final 321 292 291 272 299 275 240 215

increase in the cement surface area [21]. The HCLL35 mixture 500
exhibited the lowest setting times among all studied pastes; they
Plain
were lower than the initial and final setting times for plain cement LL15

Normalized heat [J/g-binder]

by 42.7% and 33.0%, respectively, due to the use of high-fineness 400 HL15
cement and higher limestone powder contents. HCLL15

300
3.3. Isothermal calorimetry measurements

The normalized heat flow and heat for the studied cement 200
pastes containing 15 wt% of limestone powder are shown in Figs. 3
and 4. The maximum heat flow (qmax) for the reference specimen
without limestone powder addition (Plain) was equal to 100
3.48 mW/g-cement, while the qmax values obtained for the LL15,
HL15, and HCLL15 mixtures were 4.90, 5.30, and 5.93 mW/g-
binder, respectively. Thus, higher values of qmax were observed 0
0 12 24 36 48 60 72
with an increase in the amount of added limestone powder. The
Time [h]
induction period for the three specimens containing 15 wt% of
limestone powder was shorter than that of Plain. The curve for Fig. 4. Normalized heat of pastes with 15 wt% of limestone powder.
Plain depicted in Fig. 3 exhibits the second peak after the develop-
ment of qmax. However, no second peaks were detected for the
mixtures containing limestone powder. The maximum heat flow 0.008
increased as the fineness of limestone powder became higher.
Normalized heat flow [W/g-binder]

Plain
Moreover, HCLL15 had a larger qmax magnitude and shorter induc- LL35
tion period than LL15. The two mixtures contained limestone pow- 0.006 HL35
der with the same replacement and fineness. The normalized heat HCLL35
values obtained for the specimens with 15 wt% of added limestone
powder were larger than that of plain cement. The HCLL15 mixture
was characterized by the largest normalized heat, 368.58 J/g- 0.004
binder, while the LL15 and HL15 specimens exhibited similar val-
ues of 361.92 J/g-binder and 360.43 J/g-binder, respectively, due
to the formation of carboaluminate species during cement hydra- 0.002
tion. The total heat released during the first 48 h of aging decreased
with increasing limestone powder content because of the dilution
effect, which decreased the amount of reactive particles in the
cement matrix [22]. 0.000
0 12 24 36 48
The results obtained for the specimens containing 35 wt% of
limestone powder were quite similar to those for the mixtures Time [h]
with 15 wt% as shown in Figs. 5 and 6. As compared to Plain, the Fig. 5. Normalized heat flows of pastes with 35 wt% of limestone powder.

0.008 larger qmax and shorter induction period were observed for the
mixture with 35 wt% of limestone powder, while the qmax for the
Normalized heat flow [W/g-binder]

Plain
LL15 LL35, HL35, HCLL35 mixtures were 5.27, 5.69, and 6.30 mW/g-
0.006 HL15 binder, respectively. Thus, qmax of the specimens with 35 wt% of
HCLL15 limestone powder was higher than that containing 15 wt% of lime-
stone powder. The normalized heat for the mixtures containing
35 wt% of limestone powders was higher than that for plain
0.004 cement (323.35 J/g-binder) and even larger than that of the speci-
mens with 15 wt% of limestone powder. The normalized heats
obtained for the HL35 and LL35 specimens were very close
0.002 (403.96 and 398.60 J/g-binder, respectively), while the largest nor-
malized heat measured for the HCLL35 specimen was 413.40 J/g-
binder. The obtained results suggest that the use of high-fineness
cement accelerates the hydration reaction much faster than the
0.000 addition of limestone powder with a large surface area. The pres-
0 12 24 36 48
ence of limestone promotes cement hydration through seeding,
Time [h]
which forms additional nucleation sites for hydration products
Fig. 3. Normalized heat flows of pastes with 15 wt% of limestone powder. on the filler surface and increases the effective water-to-cement
 G.D. Moon et al. / Construction and Building Materials 135 (2017) 129–136 133

500 lower than those of plain cement. In particular, the compressive

Plain
strength of LL35 measured after 3 days of aging was 27.2% lower
LL35 than that of Plain. Thus, the decrease in the compressive strength
Normalized heat [J/g-binder]

400 HL35 for the concrete specimens with 25 wt% and 35 wt% of limestone
HCLL35 powder corresponds to a dilution effect, which inhibits cement
hydration, which is in contrast to the filler effect discussed earlier
300 in this section. HL15 and HCLL15 exhibited higher compressive
strengths as compared to that of LL15 even at an added limestone
content of 15 wt%. The compressive strength measured after 3, 7,
200
and 28 days of aging increased by 2.2, 4.0, and 1.4% for HL15 and
8.6, 8.0, and 15.5% for HCLL15, respectively as compared to those
for the LL15 mixture.
100
The compressive strength development of the mixtures with
35 wt% of limestone powder was similar with that of the mixture
0 with 15 wt%. The compressive strengths measured after 3, 7, and
0 12 24 36 48 60 72 28 days increased by 13.5, 8.3, and 10.8% for the HL35 specimen
Time [h] and by 33.7, 18.4, and 16.5% for the HCLL35 specimen, respectively
as compared to those of LL35.
Fig. 6. Normalized heat of pastes with 35 wt% of limestone powder.

3.5. Porosity
ratio [23,24]. When the amount of added limestone powder is the
same, the increase in its surface area accelerates the cement hydra- The measured porosities for different cement mixture are listed
tion reaction because of the increase in the number of nucleation in Table 5. As the content of added limestone powder increased,
sites to form the hydration products [21,25,26]. the total cement porosity increased as well. The porosities of
LL25 and LL35 increased up to 13.5% and 26.5% as compared to
3.4. Compressive strength testing the porosity of Plain. The obtained water-to-binder ratios were
identical for all mixtures; however, their water-to-cement ratios
Table 4 listed the compressive strengths of the studied concrete increased with an increase in the added limestone powder content
specimens. When the content of the added limestone powder as shown in Table 5. Thus, as the water-to-cement ratio increased,
increased, the related compressive strength decreased. The com- the amount of water excess increased as well. This water excess
pressive strength obtained for the LL15 specimen at different aging constitutes a major factor, which leads to a cement porosity
times was higher than that for Plain. The compressive strengths increase [27].
measured for the LL15 mixture after 3, 7, and 28 days of aging At a content of added limestone powder addition equal to 15 wt
increased approximately by 9.8, 9.6, and 3.6% with respect to the % (LL15, HL15, and HCLL15), the measured total porosities were
magnitude obtained for Plain. The observed increase in the com- smaller than the magnitude obtained for Plain. A.M. Ramezanian-
pressive strength for the concrete mixtures with limestone powder pour et al. [17] reported that new hydration products such as car-
occurred because the limestone addition accelerated cement boaluminates were formed when the amount of added limestone
hydration, leading to the formation of new hydration products powder exceeded a specific value; as a result, the total cement
and densification of the internal concrete structure due to the filler porosity decreased (see Fig. 7).
effect. In addition, the hydration reaction for Alite, which is one of The porosity of HCLL15 was reduced by 8.6%, as compared to
the mineral cement components, was accelerated after the addi- that of Plain. For the cement mixtures with large surface areas,
tion of 15 wt% of limestone, which also resulted in the increase the hydration rate increased, and the internal structure of the
of compressive strength. cement matrix became denser, leading to a total porosity decrease
However, the compressive strengths obtained for the concrete [28]. Although the water-to-cement ratios for HCLL15 and LL15
specimens with 25 wt% and 35 wt% of limestone powder were were the same, a lower porosity value was obtained for HCLL15.

Table 4
The results of compressive strengths.

Compressive strength (MPa) Relative compressive strength, f/fPlain (%)

3 days 7 days 28 days 3 days 7 days 28 days
Plain 24.5 27.3 34.9 100.0 100.0 100.0
LL15 26.9 29.9 36.1 109.8 109.6 103.6
LL25 22.2 26.2 32.2 90.8 96.0 92.4
LL35 17.8 22.8 29.7 72.8 83.5 85.1
HL15 27.5 31.1 36.6 112.2 114.0 105.0
HL35 20.2 24.7 32.9 82.2 90.6 94.4
HCLL15 29.2 32.3 41.7 119.3 118.4 119.6
HCLL35 23.8 27.0 34.6 97.2 98.8 99.4

Table 5
Porosities and water-to-cement ratios.

Plain LL15 LL25 LL35 HL15 HL35 HCLL15 HCLL35

Porosity (%) 18.5 17.5 21.0 23.4 17.8 19.7 16.9 19.6
w/c ( ) 0.47 0.55 0.63 0.72 0.55 0.72 0.55 0.72
134 G.D. Moon et al. / Construction and Building Materials 135 (2017) 129–136

(a) Plain (b) LL15

(c) LL25 (d) LL35

(e) HL15 (f) HL35

(g) HCLL15 (h) HCLL35

Fig. 7. Pore size distribution of all paste mixtures.
 G.D. Moon et al. / Construction and Building Materials 135 (2017) 129–136 135

45 promoted the densification of pore structure, so the compres-

sive strength was increased. The surface area of cement is more
HCLL15 sensitive than that of limestone powder.
Compressive Strength [MPa]

40
Acknowledgment
HL15
LL15 This research was supported by Korea Ministry of Environment
35 HCLL35
Plain (MOE) as ‘‘Public Technology Program based on Environmental
LL25 Policy” (2016000700001) and by a Grant (Code 11-Technology
HL35
Innovation-F04) from Construction Technology Research Program
30 (CTIP) funded by Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
LL35
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