New paper in Advanced Functional Materials
Our latest publication, "High Energy Absorption Nacre-Like Calcium Silicate Hydrate (C-S-H) Composite Toward Elastic Cementitious Materials,” just appeared in Advanced Functional Materials. Congratulations to all co-authors and especially to the first author Xin Liu!
Our latest publication, "High Energy Absorption Nacre-Like Calcium Silicate Hydrate (C-S-H) Composite Toward Elastic Cementitious Materials,” just appeared in Advanced Functional Materials. Congratulations to all co-authors and especially to the first author Xin Liu!
Inspired by the microstructure of nacre, a high energy absorption C-S-H-based composite with a highly ordered structure is fabricated by a designed ternary building block, in which exfoliated montmorillonite provides a template for the nucleation and growth of C-S-H generating the “brick”, and polyvinyl alcohol acts as a “mortar” binding all the building blocks together. With the hierarchical toughening strategy explored here, the obtained C-S-H composite achieves a remarkable energy absorption of 16.2 ± 2.6 MJ m−3, which surprisingly outperforms the ultra-high toughness cementitious materials by a factor of 20–60 and is even higher than that of natural nacre and other nacre-like composites. These findings not only provide valuable insights into enhancing the toughness of cementitious materials but also open possibilities for broadening potential applications of C-S-H.
https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202307437
