Seawater-Mixed Concrete Durability and Performance
Summary
Seawater-mixed concrete has emerged as an attractive alternative to conventional freshwater concrete in coastal and arid regions, offering significant environmental and economic benefits by conserving scarce freshwater resources. The high ionic strength of seawater accelerates cement hydration and often yields improved early-age strength, but introduces elevated chloride concentrations that accelerate steel reinforcement corrosion and promote deleterious reactions such as alkali–aggregate and sulphate attacks. Microstructural changes—including refined pore networks and the formation of chloride-bearing hydrates—can both enhance and compromise long-term performance, depending on mix design and curing conditions. To balance rapid strength development with durability, researchers have explored strategies such as optimised supplementary cementitious materials, corrosion-resistant reinforcement, admixture packages and tailored curing regimes. The global significance of this work spans marine infrastructure, coastal defence systems and sustainable urban expansion, where resilient materials must perform reliably under aggressive saline exposure. Integrating insights from fundamental microstructure studies with field-scale trials is key to unlocking seawater-mixed concrete as a viable solution for climate-adaptive construction.
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Seawater-Mixed Concrete Durability and Performance publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in seawater-mixed concrete durability and performance across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Supplementary Cementitious Materials (SCMs): reactive powders such as fly ash or slag used to enhance durability and mitigate chloride penetration.
Chloride Binding: the process by which chloride ions are chemically or physically immobilised within cementitious phases to reduce corrosion risk.
Pozzolanic Reaction: a chemical reaction between siliceous materials and calcium hydroxide producing additional calcium silicate hydrate, refining pore structure.
Interfacial Transition Zone (ITZ): the microstructurally distinct region around aggregate particles where porosity and transport properties differ from the bulk paste.
Ultra-High-Performance Concrete (UHPC): a class of cementitious composite characterised by very high strength, low permeability and often containing fibrous reinforcement.
Microstructure: the arrangement of phases and pores at the microscopic scale that governs mechanical and transport properties of concrete.
References
- Seawater concrete: A critical review and future prospects. Developments in the Built Environment (2023).
- Seawater-mixed concretes containing natural and sea sand aggregates – A review. Results in Engineering (2023).
- Sulphate Corrosion Mechanism of Ultra-High-Performance Concrete (UHPC) Prepared with Seawater and Sea Sand. Polymers (2022).
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