Equimolar Zinc Nitrate Hexahydrate Lab Report

In a typical procedure, equimolar zinc nitrate hexahydrate [Zn(NO3)2, 6H2O] and hexamine (HMT) [(CH2)6N4] were dissolved in 80 ml D.I. (deionised) water to form a 0.04 M solution. Thereafter the solution was kept in a Pyrex bottle and heated in a regular laboratory oven at 110°C for 6 h. Finally the bottle was naturally cooled down and the product was collected by filtering and washing with copious amount of D. I. water.

For the synthesis of ZnO-silica hybrid, 5 ml TEOS was dissolved in 40 ml ethanol via sonication followed by which 1 ml D.I. water and 2 ml ammonia was dropped into the solution in stirring condition one after another. Thereafter the pre-synthesized ZnO was added to solution and stirred for 5 h. After the stirring span the

The SiO2 NPs and ZnO-SiO2 nano hybrid were mixed with this solution distinctly to make activators (ASi and AZnO-Si) for GMSi and GMZnO–Si mortar samples respectively. The activator to fly ash ratio was fixed at 0.75 and the fly ash, sand ratio was taken 1:3. The amount of SiO2 NPs and ZnO-SiO2 nano hybrid in their respective activator solutions (ASi or AZnO-Si) was 6% (w/w) of fly ash used. The conventional mortar (CM) samples were prepared by using Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), sand, water only. The water to cement ratio was affixed at 0.45 and the cement to sand ratio was taken 1:3. The samples were removed from the mould after 24 h, kept in ambient temperature and tested after different days (3, 7 and 28d) of air

The Rapid Chloride ion Penetration Test (RCPT) was adopted for the durability assessment of cylindrical specimens (10 cm diameter x 5 cm height) of each category mortar samples. The prepared samples were subjected to RCPT by impressing 60 V after 28 days of curing as per ASTM C1202 [24]. Water absorption capacity of standard mortar cubes (dimension 50 mm x 50 mm x 50 mm) was determined as per modified Neville’s method and the sulphate resistivity test was performed as per the guidance of ASTM C 1012 [25,