Effects of using aqueous graphene on behavior and mechanical performance of cementbased composites

This paper presents the results of an investigation into aqueous graphene (AG) in Portland cement (PC) mortars for the first time. The investigation found that AG can be used to replace powdered pristine graphene nanoplatelets (PG) in PC mortar because AG has fewer agglomerates than PG. Thus, AG not only has lower manufacturing and carbon costs compared to PG, it is also shown to outperform PG in improving the compressive strength of PC. Using AG increases cement gel nucleation seeding and prolongs PC hydration thereby improving the content and morphology of the hydration products with the resulting compressive strength of AG mortar samples being about 13% higher than PG mortar samples (70 vs 62 MPa).