Assessment of the effect of nanocarbonate additives on self-cleaning capacity of cement systems

Abstract

Self-cleaning processes of cement systems, including photocatalysis processes that occur when light hits the surface of materials containing photocatalysts, are analyzed. In most of the conducted studies, titanium dioxide (TiO2) is used as a photocatalyst as a common semiconductor material with three crystal structures — anatase, rutile and brookite — as a photocatalyst. The anatase type is more widely used because it is more photocatalytically active than other TiO2 modifications. Other semiconductor materials can be used as photocatalysts, such as SiC, WO3, Fe2O3, GaP, GaAs, CdSe, CdS, but their photocatalytic activity is lower. Also, in addition to individual compounds, InP-CdS or ZnTe-CdS systems are used, which dope TiO2 with carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen atoms. The results of research aimed at finding other ways to increase the ability of cement systems to self-cleaning, for example, by increasing the density of cement stone, are considered. A study of the effectiveness of the inclusion of a nanocarbonate additive for compacting the structure of cement systems was conducted in order to obtain cement systems capable of self-cleaning. It has been confirmed that the use of nanocarbonate materials makes it possible to obtain building materials capable of self-cleaning due to the formation of electro-heterogeneous contacts, which contributes to obtaining cement systems with improved operational properties, in particular, the ability to self-clean.