Evaluation of Aloe barbadensis Miller and Musa x paradisiaca as Internal Curing Agents in Concrete

Curing is essential for enhancing the durability and strength of concrete. Researchers found that a lack of conventional curing in earlier days leads to a loss of economy over the years after construction finishes. Self-curing concrete is a contemporary type of concrete that holds water, prevents loss of moisture from the surface, and facilitates self-curing. The existing chemical admixture for self-curing, polyethylene glycol (PEG), is expensive. Hence, in this research, bio admixtures such as Aloe barbadensis miller and Musa x paradisiaca were tried as self-curing agents and compared with the performance of PEG. The functional groups of such bio admixtures match with those of PEG. The results show that the fresh and hardened properties of M-30 concrete are better than the conventionally cured concrete and PEG added to concrete. The optimized percentages of admixtures are 0.25% for Aloe barbadensis miller, 1% for Musa x paradisiacal, and 0.5% for PEG, improving the compressive strength by 23.3%, 1.7%, and 4.5%, respectively. Similarly, split tensile and flexural strength have been enhanced up to 4.24 MPa and 15.05 MPa for Aloe barbadensis miller, and 3.82 MPa and 13.65 MPa for Musa x paradisiacal. The characterization studies', such as XRD (X-ray diffraction), SEM (scanning electron microscope), and EDX (energy dispersion analysis), results show the early formation of hydrated products, such as CSH and CH, after 7 days of curing with an optimized mix. Of the two plant extracts, Aloe barbadensis miller performed better than Musa x paradisiacal and water-cured concrete.