Effect of diethanolisopropanolamine on grinding and some properties of portland cement

Abstract

The cement grinding process consumes a lot of energy and causes environmental pollution. To minimize this energy consumption, grinding aids are commonly added during grinding. One of the grinding aids is diethanolisopropanolamine (DEIPA). Some studies in the world show that DEIPA can both increase the grinding efficiency and increase the compressive strength of cement when it is used at appropriate concentrations. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of DEIPA on the grinding process and some properties of cement. The first step was to evaluate the effect of the amount of DEIPA added to the mixing water on the compressive strength of cement at the ages of 1, 3, 7, and 28 days, and determine the economically and technically appropriate DEIPA content. The second step was to determine the effect of DEIPA at the determined content but added during grinding on the cement grinding process (crushing time and particle size distribution) and some properties of the cement (water of consistency, setting time, and compressive strength at the ages of 1, 3, 7, and 28 days). The results show that, increase of the DEIPA content in the mixing water from 0% to 0.03%, the cement compressive strength increased but increase of the DEIPA content from 0.03% to 0.05%, the compressive strength decreased. In terms of economic and technical efficiency, 0.01% content was found to be suitable. When adding 0.01% DEIPA at grinding, it reduced the grinding time, reduced the amount of particles in ranges < 10 µm, increased the amount of particles in ranges > 10 µm, slightly increased the water of consistency, slightly decreased the setting time, did not affect 1-day compressive strength, slightly increased 3-days compressive strength, and markedly increased the compressive strength at the ages of 7 and 28 days.