Author(s)

Alexey Brykov¹, Mikhail Voronkov¹, Olga Nekrasova¹, Maxim Mokeev²

¹Department of Chemistry of Substances and Materials, Saint-Petersburg State Institute of Technology, St. Petersburg, Russia.
²Institute of Macromolecular Compounds, St. Petersburg, Russia.

Pyrocatechol (benzene-1,2-diol) acts upon a calcium aluminate cement (CAC) as a very strong set and hardening retardant and a potent plasticizing agent at the same time. By studying CAC-pyrocatechol compositions using different analytical methods it was shown that pyrocatechol indeed slows CAC hydration and decreases strength of hardening stone. What makes this behavior a peculiar one is that pyrocatechol is known to accelerate Portland cement (PC) setting drastically.

Pyrocatechol, Calcium Aluminate Cements, Hydration, NMR Spectroscopy

Brykov, A. , Voronkov, M. , Nekrasova, O. and Mokeev, M. (2018) Peculiar Set-Retarding Effect of Miserly Amounts of Pyrocatechol on Calcium Aluminate Cement Hydration. Materials Sciences and Applications, 9, 455-463. doi: 10.4236/msa.2018.95031.