Carbon Fiber as Anode Material for Cathodic Prevention in Cementitious Materials

Cathodic prevention (CPre) technique is a promising method and has been used for the past two decades to prevent steel from corrosion in concrete structures. However, wide application of this technique has been restricted due to high costs of anode materials. In order to lower the cost and further improve this technique, carbon fiber composite anode has been introduced as an alternative anode material with affordable price and other outstanding properties. This paper presents the study of using carbon fiber mesh as anode material for long-term cathodic prevention system and the effect of accelerated current on macroand microstructure of cementitious materials. In the study, electrochemically accelerated tests were developed for the purpose of shortening the experimental time into a manageable range. An estimation tool was used to predict the service life as well. Chemical and microstructure analyses were carried out by laser-ablation inductively-coupled-plasma mass-spectroscopy (LA-ICP-MS) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). Results indicate that calcium to silicon (Ca/Si) ratio and ion re-distribution in the current-affected zone around the anode were changed due to migration and electrochemical reactions. The predicted service life was in general longer than 100 years. Based on the results from this work, it can be concluded that carbon fiber mesh is suitable for the application as anode in long-term cathodic prevention system in cementitious materials.