Calcined Clays for Sustainable Concrete

Karen Scrivener is a professor and head of the Laboratory of Construction Materials, Department of Materials, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) based in Lausanne, Switzerland. She graduated from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom in Materials Science (1979), and then completed a Ph.D. on the Microstructural Development during the Hydration of Portland Cement at Imperial College in London, remaining there until 1995 as a Royal Society Research fellow and then lecturer. She joined the Central Research Laboratories of Lafarge near Lyon in France in 1995 and was appointed as a professor and head of the Laboratory of Construction Materials, Department of Materials at EPFL in 2001. Her research revolves around the understanding the microstructure, hydration mechanisms, and durability of cementitious materials and, in particular, the invention of LC3 (limestone calcined clay cement) technology that enables a reduction of the CO2 intensity of cement by up to 40%.Meenakshi Sharma has been an assistant professor in the Department of Civil Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad, India, since 2022. She obtained her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from IIT Delhi, India, in 2021 and her master’s in construction technology and management from IIT Delhi. In 2021, she was awarded Swiss Government Excellence Scholarships to conduct postdoctoral research at the Laboratory of Construction Materials, Institute of Materials, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland. After joining IIT Hyderabad, she has been awarded two grant-in-aid projects to conduct independent research at IIT Hyderabad. Her research interests include experimental and analytical studies of cementitious materials, sustainable cementitious binders, durability and repair of concrete structures, and carbon utilization and storage in cementitious materials.Franco Zunino has been an assistant professor in construction materials at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, since 2025. He obtained his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in 2020, where he stayed as a postdoctoral researcher until 2022. His doctoral thesis was recognized in 2021 with the Nanocem 2020 prize, awarded to the best thesis in the field of cement and concrete science worldwide by a panel of international experts. In 2022, he received the Wason Medal, awarded by the American Concrete Institute (ACI) to the most meritorious paper published in 2021 in their journals. The same year, he was awarded a prestigious Ambizione fellowship by the Swiss National Science Foundation to conduct independent research at ETH Zürich.

• Exploration and Characterization of Various Types of Kaolinite Rich Clays, First-Ever Industrial Lab Trials, and Demonstration of LC3 in Pakistan.- Guatemalan LC3 concrete vs Portland pozzolanic cement concrete review after 3 years’ trials.- Standardisation of LC3 in India: Lessons and Way Forward for Global Acceptance.- Suitability of Selected Tanzanian Kaolinite Clays for Producing LC3 Binders.- Influence of Iron Impurities in Kaolinite Clay on Reactivity of Limestone Calcined Clay Cement Upon Calcination.- Insights on Admixtures Adsorption on Limestone Calcined Clay Cements.- Elucidating Interaction Mechanism Between Various Clay Minerals and Superplasticizers in Cementitious Binders.- Investigating the Origin of the Impact of Iron Impurities on Performance of Calcined Clay Limestone System.- Influence of Alkali Activators on the Properties of Quaternary Blended Limestone Calcined Clay Concrete Incorporating Pumice.- Assessing the Workability of LC3 and OPC Concrete Using Rheometer.- Amazon Kaolins as Raw Materials for News Blends of Limestone Calcined Clay Cement.- Comparative Study of Fresh and Mechanical Properties on Low Clinker Cement Concrete.- Characterization of Calcined Clays.- Study on Applicability of Low-Clinker Cement-LC3 in Concrete Repair Work.- Combustion Pyro Metamorphites as a Natural Resource for Calcined Clays.- Influence and Addition of Nano SiO2 on LC3.- Effect of Fineness and Addition Levels of Low-Grade Czech Clay on the Microstructure and Compressive Strength of Calcined Clay-Limestone Cement.- Assessment Of Kaolinitic Clays as Supplementary Cementing Materials. Influence Of Gibbsite on Al-Si Solubility.- Influence of Calcination Temperature on the Pozzolanic Reactivity of Natural Kaolinitic Clays of Different Genesis and Mineralogical Composition.- Predicting the Compressive Strength of Concrete with Limestone Calcined Clay using Machine Learning Techniques.- Characterization of Rice Husk and Kaolinitic Clay Blends.- Understanding Influence of Low-Clinker Cements on Service Life Under Carbonation with Semi-Empirical Models.- Colour modification of calcined clay: use of ascorbic acid and its effect on pozzolanic reactivity.- Hydration Characteristics and Mechanical Performances of LC3 Binders with Spanish Kaolinitic Calcined Clays.- X-ray Microtomographic Studies of LC3 and Related Binders.- Properties of Ternary Cements Containing Clinker, Blastfurnace Slag and Calcined Clay.- Modeling the Grinding of Calcined Clay Cement – from Laboratory Characterization to Industrial Grinding Circuit Prediction.- Towards the Design of an Industry-Suitable Technique to Assess Overcalcination of Kaolinitic Clays.- Flash Activation of Clay: High Product Quality and Energy Efficient Process.- Investigation of Microstructure Development of Cement Pastes Incorporating Calcined Clay Using Coupled Statistical Nanoindentation and XRD/Rietveld Analysis.- Investigating Autogenous Shrinkage of Limestone Calcined Clay Cement Pastes.- Improving the Early Age Strengths of LC3 Using a Mineral Accelerator System Based in Calcium Aluminates.- Influence of calcium aluminate cement addition on the hydration and strength of Limestone calcined clay cement.- Compressive strength and surface resistivity of limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) concrete made with low grade clay: A case study of Iran/Kerman cement factory clay deposit.- Impact of calcined clay on accelerated carbonation rate and comparison with other supplementary cementitious materials.- Assessment of Transport Properties on Low Clinker Cements Subjected to Hydrophobic Chemical Treatment.- Strength properties and chloride permeability of high-volume Ghanaian calcined clay concrete.- Suitability of Excavated London Clay from Tunnelling Operations as a Supplementary Cementitious Material and Expanded Clay Aggregate.- Pozzolanic Performance of a Highly Reactive Kaolinitic Clay Calcined at High Temperatures.- Mimic Systems to Evaluate Slump Retention of Calcined Clay Systems.- A High-Performance LC3 Grout.- Rheology of Limestone Calcined Clay Cements (LC3 ): Predictive Modeling of Yield Stress and Plastic Viscosity with Machine Learning.- Rheological Characterisation of The Strain-Hardening Limestone Calcined Clay Cement (SHLC3) Composites for Shot-Creting.- Performance of calcined common clay as partial replacement to cement in self-compacting concrete.- Role of Calcined Clay on Concrete Properties.- Economic and Environmental Impacts of Cement Industry in Pakistan and Use of SCMs.- A Novel Uniaxial Penetration Approach to Investigate Sulfate Attack on Cement-Based Materials.- Mechanical Properties of Calcined Clay Concrete Prepared with Cultured Bacteria Cured in Saline Environment.