Some Effects of Aging on the Surface Area of Portland Cement Paste

A hardened cement paste cured at room temperature, from which part of the evaporable water has been removed by vacuum drying, has been studied. The surface area has been shown to decrease with time depending upon the amount of evaporable water left in the paste. This change is the opposite of that usually observed during hydration and probably represents some collodial growth phenomena analogous to aging observed in other collodial gels. Both water vapor and nitrogen adsorption measurements have been used to show the effects of aging in cement paste. Wet or dry paste is shown to undergo less change than paste of intermediate evaporable water content, so that if surface area after storage is plotted as a function of evaporable water content, a curve with a minimum is obtained. With increasing storage temperature there is some indication that this minimum might shift towards lower water content. Aging is shown to occur during the initial drying of a cement paste, so that even the initial surface area of a cement paste depends upon the manner in which the paste has been dried.