Some Considerations for Applicability of Seawater as Mixing Water in Concrete

Abstract

According to the report of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), more than half of the world’s population will not have enough drinking water by 2025. To save drinking water, use of seawater in the concrete industry seems imperative. In the present study, the possibilities of seawater as a material of concrete are discussed as a result of the literature-based and experimental investigations. From the results of the literature-based study, more than half of the papers collected in this study had positive opinions about concrete mixed with seawater by adding the mineral admixture such as blast furnace slag (BFS). In addition, some results of long-term exposure tests indicated the high possibility of using seawater as a material of concrete. The experimental data obtained in this study indicated that the addition of BFS might contribute significantly to the corrosion resistance of steel bar, because of the low oxygen environment around steel bar and chloride immobilization.