Sustainable production of blended cement in Pakistan through addition of natural pozzolana

Abstract

In this work pozzolana deposits of district Swabi, Pakistan were investigated for partial substitution of Portland cement along with limestone filler. The cement samples were mixed in different proportions and tested for compressive strength at 7 and 28 days. The strength activity index (SAI) for 10 % pozzolana, and 5% limestone blend at 7 and 28 days was 75.5% and 85.0% satisfying the minimum SAI limit of ASTM C618. Twenty two percents natural pozzolana and five percents limestone were interground with clinker and gypsum in a laboratory ball mill to compare the power consumption with ordinary Portland cement (OPC) (95% clinker and 5% gypsum). The ternary blended cement took less time to reach to the same fineness level as OPC due to soft pozzolana and high grade lime stone indicating that intergrinding may reduce overall power consumption. Blended cement production using natural pozzolana and limestone may reduce the energy consumption and green house gas emissions.

Keywords

• ternary blended cement
• natural pozzolana
• limestone filler
• cement production