Experimental investigation on the influence of sonication parameter for enhancing the mechanical properties of cement mortar with graphene oxide integration

Abstract Graphene oxide (GO) has garnered the significant attention as a highly potential additive for improving the cementitious materials. This study investigates the effects of incorporating GO into mortar at different concentrations (0.025 and 0.050%) and subjecting it to various sonication times (5, 15, and 25 min). The experiments were conducted to evaluate the flexural strength, compressive strength, sorptivity, rapid chloride penetration, as well as to perform the microstructural analyses. From the Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images and Energy Dispersive x-ray, (EDX)analysis, it was ascertained that GO is uniformly distributed in the mortar, hence underlining the successful incorporation of the additive. It was seen that plain mortar was comparatively less effective in terms of the mechanical properties as GO inclusion caused an enhancement in mechanical properties of mortar. Increase in the mechanical characteristics exhibited a direct relationship with the incorporation of GO and the time of sonication. According to the sorptivity tests, it was observed that GO-mortar composites had lower values meaning that they are more water resistant. The GO-mortar composites demonstrated lower chloride ion penetration in the chloride penetration test, indicating an improvement in resistance to chloride intrusion. The TGA results showed that the thermal stability of the mortar improved as the GO concentration increased proving that the GO effectively increased the mortar’s resilience to high temperatures. The study emphasised the advantages of adding graphene oxide (GO) to mortar at optimised concentrations and sonication periods, resulting in enhanced mechanical characteristics. This Study has enhanced the understanding of graphene oxide’s potential and highlighted the need of varying sonication durations to improve high-performance cement-based materials.