TITLE:
Peculiar Set-Retarding Effect of Miserly Amounts of Pyrocatechol on Calcium Aluminate Cement Hydration
AUTHORS:
Alexey Brykov, Mikhail Voronkov, Olga Nekrasova, Maxim Mokeev
KEYWORDS:
Pyrocatechol, Calcium Aluminate Cements, Hydration, NMR Spectroscopy
JOURNAL NAME:
Materials Sciences and Applications,
Vol.9 No.5,
May
17,
2018
ABSTRACT: 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.