Elemental Differences Between Cem III/A 32.5n Cement and Eggshell Powder

Concrete remains a supreme building material in the construction industry and therefore is a primary factor of consideration for solving the housing crisis. The process of concrete production requires large volumes of cement, and cement remains one of the biggest producers of carbon dioxide. Through analysis of the output attained from X-ray diffraction (XRD) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) tests, it was found that when the micro-structure of CEM III/A 32.5N cement was compared to the micro-structure of eggshell powder, it was found that eggshell powder has a higher void potential than CEM III/A 32.5N. It was also found that the elemental composition of CEM III/A 32.5N cement showed that calcium is one of the dominant elements in its composition. This is the commonality that CEM III/A 32.5N cement and eggshell powder share since eggshell powder is mainly composed of calcium. However, an XRD of CEM III/A 32.5N versus an XRD of eggshell powder also shows that CEM III/A 32.5N has a host of elements in its composition that eggshell powder does not have. It is likely that concrete that contains CEM III/A 32.5N may still have a higher compressive and flexural strength count than concrete that contains eggshell powder in the course of the detailed study of this investigation when compressive and flexural strength tests are conducted. This may be due to the absence of all the other elements that CEM III/A 32.5N has that eggshell powder does not have.