The influence of superplasticizers on the first steps of tricalcium silicate hydration studied by NMR techniques

The influence of superplasticizer sulfonated naphthalene formaldehyde (SNF) on the hydration process of tricalcium silicate (C3S) paste was investigated by 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spin–spin and spin lattice relaxation times. The addition of SNF superplasticizer to C3S paste clearly affects the morphology and growth rates of the hydration products, mainly by increasing the dormant period length, which lasts for several hours more than in conventional C3S hydrated paste, while reducing the acceleration period length. The relaxation data indicated that a pronounced delay occurs in the C3S hardening when sulfonated polymers are added to the makeup water. For all the analyzed samples, prepared with a water-to-C3S ratio of 0.4, the decay of the echo magnetization has been fitted by adopting both a monoexponential and a biexponential relaxation model in order to evaluate the contributions from water in different regimes of hydration.