Cement mortar from seagrass.

Researchers at the University of Alicante have developed a new process for manufacturing concrete to achieve greater resistance. This is a new mortar based on Portland cement with the addition of the ashes retrieved from Neptune Grass residues.

This new mix, developed and patented by the Research Group in Materials Technology and Urban Planning, enables improved mechanical properties, such as increased initial resistance, and solve an environmental problem valuing the seagrass residues.

"Currently, the addition of the ash used is fly ash. The characteristics of each fly ash in particular affect the resistance of mortar or concrete at a given age and the evolution of the same, producing a delay in initial resistance. However, if the mortar or concrete is kept wet, its pozzolanic activity contributes to increase resistance at later ages, offering even more resistance than the mortar or concrete without fly ash", lecturer José Miguel Saval Perez from the Department Construction Engineering, Public Works and Urban Infrastructure at the University of Alicante explains.

"In the case of using ashes from the calcination of Neptune Grass residues, the opposite effect is produced, resulting in an increase of the initial resistance of the mortars added", José Miguel Saval states.

The group has designed this new mortar and worked with it so that they highlight, among other characteristics, its fluorescence, behavior and compressive resistance for different ratios of seagrass in the mortar.

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