Preparation of ultrafine fly ash by wet grinding and its utilization for immobilizing chloride ions in cement paste

In this study, to promote the chloride binding capacity of coal fired fly ash (RFA) in cementitious materials, wet grinding was employed and ultrafine fly ash (UFA) with D50 = 2.1 μm was prepared; SEM, XRD, TG, FTIR, and XPS were used to evaluate the chemical and physical change in the process of wet grinding. Then, two kinds of binders composed of cement and FA were designed, and the chloride immobilization was comparatively studied in terms of chemical binding, physical binding, and migration resistance. The hydration behavior and hydrates were investigated in terms of TGA, XRD, NMR, and MIP. Results revealed that UFA exhibited higher pozzolanic reactivity due to the increase of specific surface area, destruction of original molecular structure, and exposure of active reaction sites. And chloride immobilization in cement-UFA system was much greater than that in cement-RFA system at ages of 7 d and 28 d. The mechanism behind was discussed in three aspects: (a) chemical binding was promoted because of the more produced chloroaluminates facilitated by the release of aluminum from UFA; (b) physical adsorption was strengthened at 7 d but weakened at 28 d, resulting from the opposite influence on the amount of C-S-H gel at different ages; (c) migration resistance was improved by the reduction of pore volume and the increase in the complexity of pore structure. This investigation provided one new method for processing FA to promote the chloride immobilization of cement-FA system.