MICROSTRUCTURAL STUDY ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF COMMERCIAL POLYMER EMULSION AS CEMENT ADDITIVES TO MITIGATE EFFLORESCENCE

The occurrence of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) effl orescence phenomenon is not new and is generally found in the form of unsightly white deposits on the surface of cement products. It appears just after completion of building construction and causes aesthetically unpleasant sight. This paper presents and discusses the results of microstructural study on the effectiveness of commercial polymer emul-sion as cement additives to mitigate effl orescence on cement-based products that are dry-cured in the concrete laboratory at daily room temperature (T) and relative humidity in the range of 18°C–28°C and 65%–90%, respectively. Polymers used as cement additives were styrene acrylic ester (SAE) and styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) emulsion. Due to their pore-blocking characteristics and interaction with cement to improve mortar quality, they are added into cement to form mortar used for repair purposes. In order to investigate on how they can microstructurally infl uence effl orescence forma-tion, effl orescence intensities (EI) in terms of percentages of CaCO3 resulting from the combination of puddle test and standard chemical method were compared systematically between all samples on 28, 60 and 90 days and the fi ndings were discussed and corroborated physicochemically using initial surface absorption test, X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and morphology usin