Many (inter)national standards exist to evaluate the resistance of mortar and concrete to carbonation. When a carbonation coefficient is used for performance comparison of mixtures or service life prediction, the applied boundary conditions during curing, preconditioning and carbonation play a crucial role, specifically when using latent hydraulic or pozzolanic supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs). An extensive interlaboratory test (ILT) with twenty two participating laboratories was set up in the framework of RILEM TC 281-CCC ‘Carbonation of Concrete with SCMs’. The carbonation depths and coefficients determined by following several (inter)national standards for three cement types (CEM I, CEM II/B-V, CEM III/B) both on mortar and concrete scale were statistically compared. The outcomes of this study showed that the carbonation rate based on the carbonation depths after 91 days exposure, compared to 56 days or less exposure duration, best approximates the slope of the linear regression and those 91 days carbonation depths can therefore be considered as a good estimate of the potential resistance to carbonation. All standards evaluated in this study ranked the three cement types in the same order of carbonation resistance. Unfortunately, large variations within and between laboratories complicate to draw clear conclusions regarding the effect of sample pre-conditioning and carbonation exposure conditions on the carbonation performance of the specimens tested. Nevertheless, it was identified that fresh and hardened state properties alone cannot be used to infer carbonation resistance of the mortars or concretes tested. It was also found that sealed curing results in larger carbonation depths compared to water curing. However, when water curing was reduced from 28 to 3 or 7 days, higher carbonation depths compared to sealed curing were observed. This increase is more pronounced for CEM I compared to CEM III mixes. The variation between laboratories is larger than the potential effect of raising the CO₂ concentration from 1 to 4%. Finally, concrete, for which the aggregate-to-cement factor was increased by 1.79 in comparison with mortar, had a carbonation coefficient 1.18 times the one of mortar.

The Boom Clay is a potential host rock for geological storage of radioactive waste in the Netherlands and Belgium. The redox properties of the host rock are important in the context of safety assessment as they affect the speciation and thus the mobility of redox sensitive radionuclides. In this study, redox properties of the clay were assessed by mediated electrochemical analyses. The electron donating (EDC) and accepting (EAC) capacities and reduction potential of a suite of Boom Clay samples were determined. Boom Clay samples from various locations in the Netherlands and Belgium were investigated in unaltered form, and after size separation or chemical treatment to relate variations in redox properties to regional differences in diagenetic history or in the assemblage of allogenic minerals. In the investigated samples, the EDC can be attributed to the oxidation of pyrite, Fe^II in clay minerals and reduced natural organic matter (NOM) while the EAC can be ascribed to the reduction of Fe^III in clay minerals and in Fe (oxyhydr)oxides. Combining Na-pyrophosphate extraction, to remove reactive NOM, with mediated electrochemical oxidation (MEO) allowed determining the individual EDC of NOM and Fe^II in clay minerals. Mediated electrochemical analysis showed systematic differences between samples from two locations in the Netherlands, Zeeland and Limburg. In samples from Zeeland, the reduction potential was higher, the EAC was larger, and the contribution of NOM to the EDC was smaller compared to samples from Limburg. These differences can be attributed to partial oxidation of Boom Clay in Zeeland during its diagenetic history but partial oxidation could also be a storage artefact. The electron yield obtained by pyrite oxidation in samples from Zeeland was larger compared to those from Limburg, which can be explained by a smaller particle size of pyrite in Zeeland. The size of pyrite particles, in turn, can be used as a proxy for the depositional conditions. The electrochemical activity of Fe in clay minerals did not vary systematically between the two locations in the Netherlands. In general, the fraction of electrochemically active Fe in clay minerals increased with the relative content of 2:1 clay minerals. In comparison with samples from the Netherlands, larger fractions of structural Fe in clay minerals were redox-active in samples from Belgium, which had a higher chlorite or glauconite content. This study demonstrates that mediated electrochemical analysis can reveal redox properties of Boom Clay, which might be of relevance for the migration of redox sensitive radionuclides or when assessing the impact of constructing and operating a repository for nuclear waste on the surrounding host rock.