Electrochemical stability of steel reinforced bars embedded in cement mortars containing clinoptilolite as supplementary

One of the most important characteristic of the Portland Cement (PC) is the alkaline condition that possess, which is situate in passive conditions to the reinforced bar when are embedded in the concrete. The clinoptilolite is a common type of zeolite minerals found in the nature, recently studied in many applications. This paper present a study of behavior of the steel bars embedded in cement mortars containing 0%25, 15%25, 20%25, 25 %25 of clinoptilolite by weight as replacement of cement. The cement mortars were evaluated in absence and presence of 2%25 chlorine ions (Cl-) and were exposed during one year in Relative Humidity (RH) ≈ 98%25 at atmospheric conditions. At this time was studied the corrosion activity employing electrochemical techniques as linear polarization resistance (Rp), corrosion current density (icorr), Polarization curves (Cp) and the evolution of corrosion potential Ecorr. Furthermore, compressive strength, density and porosity of the mortars were evaluated. The results shows that additions of clinoptilolite until 25%25 and absence of Cl- not affect the passivity conditions in the steel reinforcement; steel corrosion embedded in presence of Cl- was observed to be similar to the corrosion reported for the mortars reference. Is possible replacement the cement content until 25%25 by clinoptilolite without affect the mechanical and physical properties in the mortars. © 2015 The Authors.

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