Stainless Steel Voltammetric Sensor to Monitor Variations in Oxygen and Humidity Availability in Reinforcement Concrete Structures

Abstract

The present work presents the results obtained with a stainless steel (SS) voltammetric sensor to detect variations in humidity (H2O) and oxygen (O2) availability in concretes. First, studies in solution were run by preparing several solutions to represent the different conditions that can be found in concrete pores. Second, the sensor’s response was studied by varying O2 availability by argon or synthetic air bubbling. Then concrete conditions with different degrees of carbonation were simulated using solutions with a pH between 13 and 8.45. After characterization in solution, a study by means of concrete samples with several water/cement ratios (0.6, 0.5 and 0.4) was performed, in which sensors were embedded and studied under different O2 and H2O saturation conditions. The obtained results revealed that with the voltagram, it is possible to evaluate O2 availability variation from the slopes of the lines identified logarithmically in the voltagram for the obtained cathodic sweeping. All the results obtained with the sensor were correlated/validated by standard assays to characterize porosity in hardened concretes.