Amparo Moragues Terrades

2. Materials and Methods The Portland cement used was CP-V ARI Portland cement in accordance with NBR 16697. This cement is also named by ASTM C150-5 as type III cement. Colloidal nanosilica (NS), used as a raw material for NSF and the reference sample, has nanosilica in suspension, produced by AkzoNobel. Functionalized nanosilica synthesis procedures (NSF) were demonstrated in a previous research [12].

3.3. Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA) TGA was used to quantify material content in the pastes using the mass loss at specific intervals. The test was performed at 1, 3, 7, and 28 days of hydration for all pastes. Figure 5 shows the TGA curves for all pastes at 28 days. The decomposition of CH was evaluated by determining the initial and final temperatures with a graphical analysis of the curves in the region of approximately 400 °C and 500 °C.