Investigation on the Properties of Cement Mortars with Fluid Petroleum Catalyst Residue (FPCR)

Fluid petroleum catalyst residue (FPCR) is a by-product material produced in the industry of petroleum. This research presents an experimental work to investigate the effect of FPCR as a partial replacement for Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) in five replacement levels of 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50% from the dry weight of cement. For this purpose, the setting times and compressive strength were examined at ages of 3, 7, and 28 days to assess the performance of mortar samples concerning reference mix (mix with zero replacement). The findings exhibited that the compressive strengths of mortar with 10% FPCR replacement at early and later ages increased compared with the control OPC. The 10% replacement level of FPCR has almost the same initial setting time to that of OPC, while there was a slight reduction in the final setting time. The developed mortars had significant changes in their microstructures with time, as observed by the imaging from SEM. The cost of the cement industry and its negative impacts, including CO₂ emissions, can be reduced considerably as a result of this study.