The article “Understanding the carbonation of concrete with supplementary cementitious materials: a critical review by RILEM TC 281-CC”, written by Stefanie von Greve-Dierfeld, Barbara Lothenbach, Anya Vollpracht, Bei Wu, Bruno Huet, Carmen Andrade, César Medina, Charlotte Thiel, Elke Gruyaert, Hanne Vanoutrive, Isabel F. Saéz del Bosque, Ivan Ignjatovic, Jan Elsen, John L. Provis, Karen Scrivener, Karl-Christian Thienel, Kosmas Sideris, Maciej Zajac, Natalia Alderete, Özlem Cizer, Philip Van den Heede, Robert Douglas Hooton, Siham Kamali-Bernard, Susan A. Bernal, Zengfeng Zhao, Zhenguo Shi and Nele De Belie was originally published electronically on the publisher’s internet portal on 22 October 2020 without open access. The copyright of the article changed in February 2021 to © The Author(s) 2021 and the article is forthwith distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, duplication, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.@en

Blended cements, where Portland cement clinker is partially replaced by supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), provide the most feasible route for reducing carbon dioxide emissions associated with concrete production. However, lowering the clinker content can lead to an increasing risk of neutralisation of the concrete pore solution and potential reinforcement corrosion due to carbonation. carbonation of concrete with SCMs differs from carbonation of concrete solely based on Portland cement (PC). This is a consequence of the differences in the hydrate phase assemblage and pore solution chemistry, as well as the pore structure and transport properties, when varying the binder composition, age and curing conditions of the concretes. The carbonation mechanism and kinetics also depend on the saturation degree of the concrete and CO₂ partial pressure which in turn depends on exposure conditions (e.g. relative humidity, volume, and duration of water in contact with the concrete surface and temperature conditions). This in turn influence the microstructural changes identified upon carbonation. This literature review, prepared by members of RILEM technical committee 281-CCC carbonation of concrete with supplementary cementitious materials, working groups 1 and 2, elucidates the effect of numerous SCM characteristics, exposure environments and curing conditions on the carbonation mechanism, kinetics and structural alterations in cementitious systems containing SCMs.

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