Potential use of natural perlite powder as a pozzolanic mineral admixture in Portland cement

This paper investigates the effect of incorporating natural perlite powder (NPP) as a cement replacement on cementitious materials properties. For this purpose, cement pastes and mortars were prepared by replacing 5, 10, 15, and 20% of NPP by mass of the Portland cement. Physicomechanical performances of pastes and mortars based NPP were inspected using normal consistency, setting times, heat of hydration, and compressive strength testing. Resistance against sodium sulfate attack and sulfuric acid attack were also assessed to investigate the durability characteristics of different mortar mixes. Experimental results show that cement pastes and mortars incorporating up to 20% of NPP demonstrate satisfactory physical and mechanical properties with very comparable results to cementitious materials without NPP. In addition, improved sulfate and acid attacks resistance with increased NPP content were demonstrated. The X-ray diffraction analyses confirm that NPP can be considered as a good pozzolanic material that can be used satisfactorily as a mineral admixture in cement production.