Investigation of Compressive Strength of ‎Cement/Silica Nanocomposite Using ‎Synthesized Silica Nanoparticles from ‎Sugarcane Bagasse Ash ‎

The effect of silica nanoparticles used as a nanoporous additive in cement was studied with various wt % ratios. Saccharum officinarum bagasse, an agricultural waste residue was used to synthesize silica nanoparticles as it contains a high amount of silica. The synthesized silica nanoparticles were characterized through XRD and FTIR spectroscopic analysis techniques. By the analysis of XRD, crystalline peaks were found to be particularly of quartz form of silica with an average size of 25.58 nm. The characteristic functional group of the extracted silica nanoparticle was observed at various absorption bands such as the peaks at 1056 cm^-1 and 794 cm^-1 correspond to SiOSi asymmetric and SiO symmetric stretching modes respectively. The extracted silica nanoparticles were applied to form nanocomposites with cement to investigate their compressive strength and the silica nanoparticle was found to increase the compressive strength of cement due to the pozzolanic reaction of silica nanoparticles with Ca(OH)_2.