Influence of Stearic Acid on Portland Cement Performance as Grinding Aids

Different contents of stearic acid were added to mixtures, and the influences of stearic acid as grinding aids on portland cement performances, including specific surface, compressive strength, hydration heat, Ca(OH)2 (CH) content, C-S-H gel and ettringite (AFT) content were discussed in this paper. The results show that the addition of small amount of stearic acid is enough, and excessive addition of stearic acid is not a good matter to cement grinding. Adding a small amount of stearic acid, not only don’t improve the compressive strength, but also lower the compressive strength significantly. Although the specific surface of samples with 0.1% stearic acid is lower than that of the samples with 0.025% stearic acid and reference, the compressive strength appears of higher than others. Addition of stearic acid affects not only on the rate of heat liberation, but also the hydration heat significantly. The addition of stearic acid has uncommonly impact on the content of CH, C-S-H and AFT in cement paste at 3 days, 7days and 28 days hydration age, the samples with 0.1% stearic acid has higher content of CH, C-S-H and AFT than others, and lower conversion content of AFT from 3days to 7days and 7days to 28 days. This can explain why the cement with 0.1% stearic acid is provided with the higher compressive strength than others, from the perspective of hydration production composition.