Effects of different supplementary cementitious materials on durability and mechanical properties of cement composite – Comprehensive review

Ordinary Portland cement is the highest produced cement type in the world, however its production is high energy consumption means expensive, huge natural resource consumptive, and creating high environmental pollution. Hence many researchers studied to reduce the effect of ordinary Portland cement by substituting artificial and natural supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) commonly in a concrete/mortar mixture. However, the comprehensive effect of different SCMs on various properties of cement composite materials are not well known. So the present study sought to review the effect of different natural and artificial SCMs on the durability and mechanical properties of cement composites, especially due to their doses, types, chemical composition, and physical properties. Hence the review shows that many SCMs used by literatures from different places satisfy ASTM replacement standard based on their chemical compositions. Also, the review indicated as adding 5–20% of different SCMs positively affect mechanical properties, durability, and microstructures of the cement composite materials, specifically as most researchers found isolately adding of 15% SCMs such as bentonite, kaolin, and biomass, 20% addition of volcanic ash and 10% employment of fly ash, silica fume, and zeolite to the cement composites achieves the most optimum compressive and split tensile strength. These observations reveal that most natural pozzolana can more replace cement to give optimum strength, hence can more reduce energy consumption, production cost, and environmental pollution comes due to cement production. Furthermore, most researchers found employing different SCMs generally improves durability, however there is a limited study on the effect of silica fume on water absorption and acidic attack resistance of cementitious materials. Therefore, it is recommended that future research should also focus more to know the effect of silica fume on the durability of cement composites.