Comparative study of sustainable cement and Portland cement in terms of strength and fracture properties

The cement sector is responsible for 8% of CO₂ emissions from greenhouse gases in the world. Global climate change and sustainability require the cement industry to seek innovative solutions. Innovative methods aiming to reduce the environmental footprint of cement production have a critical role in the development of the sector. These approaches are important in terms of both protecting the ecological balance and supporting sustainable development. Portland Cement (PC) is the most widely used cement in our country and in the world and is responsible for CO₂ emissions. In this research, the concrete produced with ‘net-zero cement NOVOCEM©)’, which is an environmentally friendly and sustainable product produced in Turkey, was compared with PC in terms of strength and fracture toughness for the first time in the literature. OYAK Cement Ltd., which is the producer of NOVOCEM, has kept the reduction of CO₂ emission with calcined clay technology in the first place among its targets in parallel with borderline carbon applications and produces NOVOCEM© cement with 40% lower CO₂ emission and 35% less energy consumption with 20% renewable fuel. The fracture toughness test results showed that higher strength and fracture toughness values were obtained for both PC cement and NOVOCEM cement concrete SCB specimens with 45° notch cracks compared to specimens with 0° and 30° inclined notch cracks. The results also showed that the standard deviation values of the SCB specimens with PC cement containing specimens with all three notch crack angles were higher than the standard deviation values found in the test results of the specimens containing NOVOCEM cement. This result shows that more standardized results will be obtained with net-zero cement than with concrete containing PC cement.