Effect of Natural Herbs on Hydrated Phases of Lime Mortar

Abstract

This study focuses on determining the possible interaction of organics like kadukkai (terminalia chebula) and jaggery (unrefined sugar) with an inorganic lime mortar using chemical analysis, organic analysis, and analytical techniques such as XRD, FT-IR, TGA, and SEM. It is due to the materials present in organics that various properties of lime mortar are enhanced. The results of kadukkai (LM-K), jaggery (LM-J), and jaggery-kadukkai hybrid (LM-JK) lime mortars were compared with the reference mortar (LM-R). Results show that the presence of carbohydrate in the organics boosts the carbonation process in the lime matrix. The thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) results illustrate that the total weight loss of organic modified lime mortar was higher for LM-K, LM-J, and LM-JK with 14.36%, 14.23%, and 15.58% whereas mortar without organic modification was 8.05%. The addition of kadukkai and jaggery in the lime mortar separately has enhanced the carbonation rate of lime mortar whereas the kadukkai-jaggery hybrid modified lime mortar increased the calcium oxalate minerals in the lime mortar, which helps to increase the durability of mortar.