Construction and Building Materials 96 (2015) 20–28

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Effect of graphene oxide on the rheological properties of cement pastes

Yu Shang, Dong Zhang ⇑, Chao Yang, Yanyun Liu, Yong Liu
Key Laboratory of Advanced Civil Engineering Materials, Ministry of Education, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Caoan Road 4800, Shanghai
201804, People’s Republic of China

h i g h l i g h t s

 The addition of GO into the cement caused a noticeable reduction in fluidity and increased rheological parameters.
 GO encapsulated silica fume (GOSF) was prepared. Compared with SF pastes, GOSF pastes had better rheological properties, indicating the addition of GO
improved rheological properties.
 A possible mechanism was proposed to explain the different effects of GO on the rheological properties of cement pastes.
 The research provides a pathway to utilizing GO in cement based materials.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The effects of graphene oxide (GO), silica fume (SF) and graphene oxide encapsulated silica fume (GOSF)
Received 26 March 2015 on the rheological properties of cement pastes were investigated. It was found that the addition of GO
Received in revised form 22 July 2015 into the cement caused a noticeable reduction in fluidity and increased rheological parameters.
Accepted 27 July 2015
However, GOSF pastes had better fluidity and lower rheological parameters at a same dosage of SF, indi-
cating that the addition of GO lowers the rheological parameters. A possible mechanism was proposed to
explain the different effects of GO on cement pastes. The research provides a pathway to utilizing GO in
Keywords:
cement based materials.
Graphene oxide
Graphene oxide encapsulated silica fume
Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Cement
Rheological properties

1. Introduction properties [16,17]. Consequently, GO shows a better gain in com-

Cement is the key component of concrete and mortar, which is
one of the most important and widely used building materials. The
incorporation of admixtures [1–3] and fibers [4–6] is now an
important technique in improving the properties of cement com-
posites, such as rheological properties, strength, durability, etc.
Recently, the development of nanomaterials, such as carbon nan-
otubes (CNTs) and graphene, has provide opportunities to improv-
ing the performance of cement pastes [7,8]. Many studies have
been carried on the effect of CNTs on the cement hydration and
mechanical properties of cement composites [7,9–12]. With the
addition of small amounts of CNTs, the compressive and flexural
strengths of cement composites were improved [13–15].
As a graphene derivative, two-dimensional graphene oxide (GO)
has several oxygen-containing functional groups such as hydroxyl,
carbonyl, epoxy groups and carboxylic groups, rendering GO sheets
hydrophilic. GO has a large surface area and good mechanical
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: zhangdng@tongji.edu.cn (D. Zhang).
pressive strength at a lower concentration when compared to
CNT reinforced cement [12]. The introduction of GO in cement
not only can regulate hydration but also improve the tensile, flex-
ural and compressive strengths of the cement paste [8,18–22]. Lv
et al. [19] discovered that when the content of GO was 0.03%, the
cement composites exhibited remarkable increase in tensile
strength (78.6%), flexural strength (60.7%) and compressive
strength (38.9%).
However, similar to the other nanomaterials such as nanosilica
and CNTs, the addition of GO into the cement affects the fluidity
and increased rheological parameters [8,21–23]. Pan et al. [22]
noted the reduction in workability was about 42% via a
mini-slump test with the incorporation of 0.05 wt.% GO. Gong
et al. [23] examined the rheological behaviors of GO reinforced
cement composite with the aid of the conventional mini-slump
test accompanied by the rheological studies. It was found that
small proportions of GO increased both the viscosity and yield
stress of fresh cement paste. Moreover, the viscosity increased
with the size of GO, confirming the influence of geometry on the
workability. These studies infer an inverse correlation between

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2015.07.181
0950-0618/Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Y. Shang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 96 (2015) 20–28
the concentration of GO and workability. It is widely accepted that
the large surface area of nanomaterials demands more water to
wet their surface, thereby reducing the free water content required
for lubrication. Moreover, large scale agglomerates of nanomateri-
als in cement matrix lead to lower fluidity. However, the work on
the influence of GO on the rheological properties of cements is still
scarce.
In this paper, the effects of GO on the rheological properties of
cement pastes was investigated. It was found that the addition of
GO into the cement caused a noticeable reduction in fluidity and
increased rheological parameters. Then GO was modified onto
the surface of silica fume (SF) to prepare graphene oxide encapsu-
lated silica fume (GOSF). It is expected that GOSF will achieve a
good dispersion of GO and SF in the cement matrix by the syner-
getic effect of the surface activity of GO and the shape effect of
SF. Compared with cement pastes with SF, GOSF pastes had higher
fluidity and lower rheological parameters, indicating the addition
of GO improved rheological properties. Combined with the results
of reduced graphene oxide, the possible mechanism was discussed
to explain the different effects of GO on cement pastes in the paper.
The research provides a pathway to utilizing GO in cement based
materials.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Materials
Ordinary Portland cement type 42.5R was main materials used in this research.
SF was used as the cementitious material. The chemical compositions of the cement
and SF are shown in Table 1. Table 2 shows the physical properties of SF and GOSF.
Graphite oxide was purchased from the Sixth Element Ltd. The suspension of gra-
phene oxide (GO, 4 mg/mL) was prepared by dispersing the graphite oxide powder
into water with the help of ultrasonication for 2 h. The chemical compositions of GO
measured by XPS is shown in Table 3. GO is composed of C and O. The C/O ratio is
2.29.
2.2. Preparation of GOSF
The SF particles were dispersed into ethanol solution via sonication. After
30 min, 3-Aminopropyltrimethoxysilane (APS) was poured into the above solution
and reaction for 24 h to obtain APS-modified silica fume. Then the suspension was
washed with ethanol and deionized water.
GOSF was fabricated via the electrostatic interaction between positively
charged modified silica fume and negatively charged graphene oxide in aqueous
solutions. GO suspension (4 mg mL1) was added into APS-modified silica fume dis-
persion under mild magnetic stirring. Almost all the graphene oxide and modified
silica nanoparticles coassembled to leave a transparent aqueous solution. The
GOSF particles were obtained after centrifugation and kept in a vacuum desiccators
at 60 °C for 24 h (see Fig. 1).
2.3. Preparation of cement pastes
The cement paste was prepared by mixing cement, water and GOSF/SF/GO. The
water/cement weight ratio remained 0.4. There was a plain cement mix that serves
as the reference sample. To investigate the influence of GO, the dosage of GO
nanosheets was varied from 0.02% to 0.08% by weight of cement. In other series
experiment, the replacement ratio of OPC with GOSF/SF was varied from 2% to 8%
by weight (2%, 4%, 6%, 8%). While the cement pastes with the combined addition
SF and GO were also prepared (GO + SF).
Mixing procedures similar to GB/T 8077-2000 were adopted. Water was added
to a mixing container. The GOSF/SF were then added and stirred for 60 s. Then
cement was added and the mixture was stirred at low speed for 120 s. Stop the
mixer for 15 s, during which any paste on the sides of the bowl is scraped down into
the hatch. Then operate the mixer at high speed for 120 s. After mixing, a portion of
the mixtures was used for the mini-slump test.
Table 1
Chemical compositions of cement and SF.
Component SiO2 CaO Al2O3 MgO K2O SO3 Fe2O3 Na2O
Cement (%) 22.7 61.1 6.85 0.95 0.28 3.61 2.86 0.36
SF (%) 91 0.4 1.1 1.0 0.9 0.3 2.0 0.2
21
Table 2
The physical properties of SF and GOSF.
Density (g/cm3) Specific surface area (m2/g) Mean particle size
(lm)
SF 2.29 13.51 0.1040
GOSF 2.12 14.99 0.1057
Table 3
The chemical compositions of GO measured by XPS.
C (Atomic %) O (Atomic %)
GO 68.93 30.15
2.4. Testing methods
2.4.1. Mini-slump tests
In order to evaluate the influence of GO sheets on the fluidity of the cement
pastes, mini-slump test was carried out. After mixing, mixtures were poured into
a mini-core (top diameter 36 mm, bottom diameter 60 mm, and height 60 mm)
immediately. The testing procedures are the same as GB/T 8077-2000 (National
Standard of China).
2.4.2. Rheological measurements
The rheological measurements of the pastes were performed by means of a
NXS-11 rotary viscometer. The method was based on measuring the shear stress
(s) along complete cycles containing the ascending and descending shear rates;
15 rotating speeds are available. The initial and final speeds were 5.6 and
360 rpm, respectively.
Since cement pastes coincides with Bingham flow, the plastic viscosity (gp) and
the yield stress (s0) can be obtained by working out the slope and the intercept of
the shear stress–shear rate curve, with the linear regression calculation. The math-
ematical form of the Bingham equation is as follows:
s ¼ s0 þ gp c ð1Þ
where s is the shear stress (Pa), c is the shear rate (1/s), gp is the plastic viscosity
(Pa s), and s0 is the yield stress (Pa).
2.4.3. Compression tests
In order to examine the influence of GO, SF, GOSF on the mechanical properties
of cement pastes, compression tests were conducted on the specimens
(2 cm  2 cm  2 cm). The specimens were tested at the age 28 days. The loading
rate was set to 10 mm/min. At least three samples were repeated for each test.
The morphology of the samples was observed with a field emission scanning
electron microscopy (Quanta 200FEG, FEI). Atomic force microscopy (AFM) images
were acquired on a scanning probe microscope (NSK, SPA-300HV). The particle size
distribution of GO, SF and GOSF was measured by laser particle size analyzer
(LS230). X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis were performed on a
RBD upgraded PHI-5000C ESCA system (Perkin Elmer) with Mg K radiation
(h = 1253.6 eV). Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra were obtained through a
BRUKER EQUINOXSS spectrometer use the attenuated total reflectance.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Characterization of GO, SF and GOSF
Fig. 2a shows the AFM image of the GO sheets after ultrasonica-
tion. It can be found that the average thickness of the GO sheet
after ultrasonication is approximately 1 nm, indicating that the
GO sheets are exfoliated into monolayer. The size distribution of
the GO determined with a help of laser particle size analyzer is
shown in Fig. 2(b). The average lateral dimension of GO sheets is
approximately 1.12 lm and the size distribution of the GO is found
to approximately follow normal distributions after ultrasonication,
which is similar to the results of the effect of ultrasonication treat-
ment on the carbon nanotubes [24].
As shown in Fig. 2c, the C1s spectrum of GO consists of four dif-
ferent peaks: C@C in aromatic rings (284.3 eV); C–O (286.3 eV);
C@O (287.6 eV); COOH (289.0 eV), indicating the existence of these
oxygen-containing functional groups. Fig. 2d shows the FT-IR
transmittance spectra of GO. The spectrum of GO illustrates C–O
22 Y. Shang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 96 (2015) 20–28

Fig. 1. Schematic illustration of the preparation procedure of GOSF.

Fig. 2. The characterization of GO (a) AFM image and height profile of GO, (b) the size distribution of GO, (c) XPS spectra of GO and (d) FT-IR transmittance spectra of GO.

stretching vibrations at 1040 cm1, C–O–C stretching vibrations at
1226 cm1, C@O in carboxylic acid and carbonyl moieties at
1722 cm1; C@C at 1610 cm1 assigns to skeletal vibrations of
unoxidized graphitic domains. The band at 3391 cm1and
1353 cm1 could be ascribed to the O–H stretching mode and
deformation vibration of intercalated water, respectively. This
shows, along with the chemical analysis by XPS, that the oxygen
functional groups exist in GO.
Fig. 3a shows the TEM image of GO. It can be seen that GO is a
flat sheet like silk. Fig. 3b shows the SEM image of SF. It can be seen
that the shape of the SF particles is spherical. The morphology and
structure of the resulting GOSF are observed by TEM (Fig. 3c). The
GOSF particles show crinkled textures which are associated with
the presence of flexible GO sheets. The edges of individual as well
as overlapping GO layers can be observed, particularly at the inter-
face between aggregated particles, where the GO layers appeared
to link neighboring spheres together. This result suggests the
encapsulation of the SF by GO sheets. Fig. 3d shows the particle
size distribution of SF and GOSF. It can be seen that the particle size
distribution of GOSF is a little larger than that of SF, which may
caused by the existence of GO on the surface.
3.2. Effect of GO on the rheological properties of cement pastes
Fig. 4 shows the mini-slump flow for the cement pastes with
different dosage of GO. The mini-slump diameter of the plain
 Y. Shang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 96 (2015) 20–28
Fig. 3. (a) TEM image of GO, (b) SEM image of SF, (c) TEM image of GOSF and (d) the size distribution of SF and GOSF.
cement is approximately 116 mm. When 0.08% by weight GO is
added, the diameter is approximately 74 mm, which is 36.2% lower
than that of the plain cement. It is observed that the diameter of
mini-slump is reduced with the increase of the dosage of GO, indi-
cating that GO additives reduce the fluidity of cement pastes.
The rheological properties of cement paste with variable GO
content (from 0.02% to 0.06%) are illustrated as Fig. 5. The shear
stress–shear rate curves obtained are shown in Fig. 5a. It can be
seen that the curves shift upwards as the GO content increase.
The yield stress value and plastic viscosity values of cement pastes
are calculated based on the Bingham’s model (Fig. 5c and d). The
results for cement pastes show that the yield stress value and plas-
tic viscosity value of pastes increase with higher addition of GO.
The yield stress value is increased from 25.6 Pa for plain cement
to 105.3 Pa with 0.08% GO, while the plastic viscosity increased
from 0.84 Pa s to 1.95 Pa s.
The variation of apparent viscosities with shear rate for pastes
with various GO dosages is shown in Fig. 5b. Apparent viscosity
decreases with the increase of shear rate. The apparent viscosity
is increased with the increase of the dosages of GO. For any given
dosage of GO, the increase in GO dosage should increase the viscos-
ity at both high and low shear rates.
23
3.3. Effect of SF and GOSF on the rheological properties of cement
pastes
Fig. 6 shows the mini-slump flow for the cement pastes with
different replacement ratios of SF, GOSF and GO + SF. It is observed
that the addition of SF, GOSF and GO + SF to cement paste leads to
lower fluidity. However, the fluidity of GOSF pastes is much better
than that of SF, indicating that the addition of GO increase the flu-
idity of cement paste. While the fluidity of GO + SF is lower than SF,
suggesting that the separate addition of GO decrease the fluidity.
Therefore, the effects of GO sheets covered in the surface of silica
fume particles and GO on the rheological parameters of cement
paste are different. When 6% cement is replaced by GOSF, the
diameter to approximately 96 mm, which is 23.1% higher than that
of SF paste. While the fluidity of cement paste with the same
replacement ratio of GO + SF is 65 mm, which is 17.3% lower than
that of SF paste. Although single GO additives reduce the fluidity of
cement paste, when SF is encapsulated by GO, GO increase the flu-
idity of cement pastes. The reason for these results will be dis-
cussed in the following Section 3.4.
The shear stress–shear rate curves of cement pastes with vari-
ous replacement ratios of SF and GOSF obtained are shown in
24 Y. Shang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 96 (2015) 20–28

Fig. 4. The mini-slump flow of cement pastes with different dosages of GO.

Fig. 5. (a) Shear rate–shear stress curves, (b) shear rate-apparent viscosity curves of cement pastes with different dosages of GO, effects of dosage of GO on the yield stress (c)
and plastic viscosity (d).

Fig. 7a and c, respectively. It can be seen that the curves shift
upwards as the SF or GOSF dosage increase. All flow curves of
tested pastes demonstrate thixotropic flow. The curves for SF
shifted more than those for GOSF at the same admixture contents.
For each dosage, the shear stress was larger for SF at the same
shear rate.
Fig. 7b and d shows apparent viscosity decreases with the
increase of shear rate forcement pastes with various SF dosages
and GOSF. Pastes exhibit high apparent viscosities at low shear
rates and significantly lower viscosities at greater shear rates.
The apparent viscosity is increased with the increase of the dosages
of SF and GOSF. For the same dosage of SF, the use of GOSF results
in a lower apparent viscosity at same shear rate.
Fig. 8a and b compares the yield stress and plastic viscosity val-
ues of pastes with different replacement ratios of SF and GOSF. It is
observed that plastic viscosity and yield stress increased with the
 Y. Shang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 96 (2015) 20–28
Fig. 6. Comparison of mini-slump flow of cement pastes with different replacement
ratio of SF, GO + SF and GOSF.
dosage of SF increased. For a given dosage, however, GOSF pastes
have a lower yield stress value and plastic viscosity, indicating that
the addition of GO lower the yield stress value and plastic viscosity
of cement pastes. When 8% dosage of GOSF is added, the yield
Fig. 7. Shear rate–shear stress curves of cement pastes with different dosages of SF (a) and GOSF (b), shear rate-apparent viscosity curves of cement pastes with different
dosages of SF (c) and GOSF (d).
25
stress is 39.6 % lower than that of SF paste at the same dosage,
while the plastic viscosity decreased by 18.2%.
Ds0 and Dgp values are the difference of yield stress and plastic
viscosity of pastes with and without GO. One can see (Fig. 8c
and d), from the dependence between Ds0/Dgp and the dosage of
GO, that the yield stress and plastic viscosity are reduced with
the addition of GO. In this case the difference in yield stress is as
high as 45.50 Pa; from 115.57 Pa with SF it decreases to 69.77 Pa
for the paste with 0.16% GO, while the difference in plastic viscos-
ity is as high as 0.384 Pa s. The effects of GO in this method is con-
trary to the results of the individual addition of GO.
3.4. The influence mechanism of GO on the rheological properties of
the cement pastes
It is widely believed that the hydrophilic GO has a large surface
area to absorb water molecules to its surface, reducing the free
water content required for lubrication, which leads to the decrease
of the fluidity and the increase of the viscosity and yield stress of
cement pastes [8,22]. However, according to the experiment, it is
observed that when GO in water contacts with cement, the nega-
tively charged GO interacts with cement particles by electrostatic
interactions, leading to the formation of the aggregates and floccu-
lation (Fig. 9a). The flocculated structure that entraps large amount
of free water is a decisive factor for the rheological behavior of
cement pastes. As result of the lack of free water, the frictional
26 Y. Shang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 96 (2015) 20–28

Fig. 8. Comparison of the yield stress (a) and plastic viscosity values (b) of pastes with different dosages of SF and GOSF, and dependence of Ds0 (c) and Dgp (d) values for
cement pastes with the dosage of GO.

Fig. 9. (a) Cement mixed with GO (b) SEM image of the flocculated structure with GO and cement at 1 day.

resistance among the cement particles and the sheets is increased,

leading to the lower fluidity and higher rheological parameters.
Fig. 9b shows the SEM image of the flocculated structure with
GO and cement, rod-like and flower-like crystals are observed.
The crystals were characterized by EDS (Table 2). It can be seen
that the C exists in crystals and the hydration crystals are close
to AFM, which indicates that GO interacts with cement particles
and offer the sites for C–S–H nucleation (see Table 4).
The reasons can be further confirmed by the mini-slump test of
cement pastes with chemically reduced GO (CRGO) with hydrazine
(Fig. 10). It is observed that CRGO pastes have better fluidity than
GO pastes. After GO is chemically reduced, CRGO is less hydrophilic
and less negative charges are formed although CRGO still has a
large surface area to absorb water molecules, leading to less floccu-
lated structures are formed. Therefore, the mini-slump flow of
CRGO pastes is larger than that of GO pastes and less than plain
cement.
The addition of SF or GOSF to cement paste leads to lower fluid-
ity, which is mainly because that the addition of a fine powder will
Fig. 10. Comparison of mini-slump flow of cement pastes with different dosages of
increase the water demand due to the increase in surface area.
GO and CRGO.
However, the presence of GO in GOSF increases the fluidity of
cement pastes. This may because the GO sheets encapsulating SF inter-particle friction resistance. In addition, when cement comes
adsorb water molecules to its surface, which makes the spherical into contact with water, the fast dissolution and early hydration
particle more easily to roll over one another, reducing of cement build surface charges on cement particles. The
 Y. Shang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 96 (2015) 20–28 27

Fig. 11. Schematic illustration of (a) the formation of flocculated structure and (b) the influence mechanism of GOSF.

Table 6
The compressive strengths of the cement pastes with SF and GOSF at 28 days.

Replacement ratio of SF/GOSF (%) Compressive strength at 28 days

(MPa)/increase rate (%)
SF GOSF
0 39.27 39.27
2 42.45/8.1 48.46/23.4
4 45.65/16.0 50.97/29.7
6 44.49/13.29 51.02/29.9

CRGOSF is less negative charges on the surface. Therefore, less

water absorbed by CRGO and weaker electrostatic repulsion lead
to lead to the inter-particle friction resistance is increased and
lower fluidity. Then it can be concluded that the effect of GOSF
on the rheological parameters of cement pastes may because the
synergetic effect of the shape effect of SF and the surface activity
of GO. GO covered on the surface of silica fume particles benefits
the shape effect of SF and the surface activity of GO makes GO
act as surfactant on the surface of SF.
Fig. 12. Comparison of mini-slump flow of cement pastes with different replace-
ment ratio of SF, GOSF and CRGOSF.

3.5. Effect of GO, SF and GOSF on the mechanical properties of cement

pastes
Table 4
The chemical composites of cement hydration crystals.
The compressive strengths of the cement pastes with GO at
Element C O Mg Al Si Ca Fe
28 days are shown in Table 5. The results indicate that compressive
Wt % 16.53 41.52 1.96 5.34 9.53 13.08 12.03 strengths of cement pastes increase with increasing dosage of GO
until 0.04%. The compressive strength at a dosage of 0.04% is
increased by 15.1% compared with the plain cement paste. The
Table 5
main reason is that GO interacts with cement particles and can reg-
The compressive strengths of the cement pastes with GO at 28 days.
ulate the microstructure of cement pastes (as shown in Fig. 9). The
GO dosage (%) Compressive strength at 28 days (MPa) Increase rate (%) microstructure is changed with the increasing GO dosages, which
0 39.27 0 is explained in Lv’s research [18,19].
0.02 43.12 9.8 The compressive strengths of the cement pastes with SF and
0.04 45.20 15.1
GOSF at 28 days are shown in Table 6. The results indicate that
0.06 44.14 12.4
compressive strengths of cement paste increase with increasing
replacement ratio of SF or GOSF. The increase rate of cement pastes
with GOSF is more than that of cement paste with SF at the same
heterogeneous charge distribution leads to the formation of floccu- replacement ratio. At the same dosage of GO, the compressive
lated structure that entraps large amount of free water as illus- strengths of cement pastes with GOSF is larger than that of cement
trated in Fig. 11a. The negative charged GO on SF surface provide pastes with only GO. This may because the synergetic effect of SF
electrostatic repulsion among particles. This allows better disper- and GO on the mechanical properties.
sion of cement particles and releases the entrapped water to turn
into free water (Fig. 11b).
The reason can be confirmed by the mini-slump test of cement 4. Conclusions
pastes with GOSF reduced by hydrazine (Fig. 12). It is observed that
chemically reduced GOSF (CRGOSF) pastes have lower fluidity than The effects of GO, SF and GOSF on the rheological properties of
GOSF pastes. After reduction, the difference between GOSF and cement pastes were investigated. The following conclusions have
28 Y. Shang et al. / Construction and Building Materials 96 (2015) 20–28
been drawn from this investigation. The findings can be summa-
rized as follows:
(1) The fluidity of cement pastes is reduced with the increase of
the dosage of GO, indicating that GO additives reduce the
fluidity of cement paste. While the yield stress and plastic
viscosity are increased with the increase of GO addition.
(2) The addition of SF or GOSF to cement paste leads to lower
fluidity. However, the fluidity of GOSF pastes is higher than
that of SF pastes, indicating that the addition of GO increase
the fluidity of cement pastes. It is observed that GOSF pastes
have a lower yield stress value and plastic viscosity at a
same dosage of SF, indicating that GO lowers the yield stress
value and plastic viscosity of cement pastes.
(3) The effects of GO and GO sheets encapsulating SF on the flu-
idity and rheological properties of cement pastes are differ-
ent. This may because the synergetic effect of the shape
effect of SF and the surface activity of GO.
By comparison with SF, GOSF has better effect on rheological
properties and mechanical properties of cement pastes. GOSF can
be used as a novel admixture and the research provides a pathway
to utilizing GO in cement based materials.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by National High Technology
Research and Development Program of China (No.
2012AA030303) and Basic Research Key Program of Shanghai
(No. 12JC1408600).
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