Literature Review

This literature review will be synthesizing particular articles that were presented
in my annotated bibliography. Not just any articles, but the main articles that are relevant
to my research gap. Of course, my research gap will be about the most talked about
subject throughout my whole annotated bibliography, which is the alternative materials
for strengthening cement. But the actual research gap is to find out what other materials
besides the ones previously mentioned in the articles can also strengthen cement. The
difference between my literature review and my annotated bibliography is that my
annotated bibliography main purpose was to separately summarize each of my research
articles. While my literature review will be, just like my professor said, recounting what
has already been said in the conversation as well as what has been left out of the
conversation. In other words, this literature review will be synthesizing each of the
sources that are relevant to my research gap and comparing their main points. But to
successfully accomplish this, I will be looking at three relevant articles and figuring out
what is already known and what has been left out of this particular conversation.
Before continuing onto the three articles, youre probably wondering why theres
a need to find alternative materials to help strengthen cement. The reason for that is
because one of the main problems that are usually experienced during the service life of
concrete paving blocks includes occasional failure due to excessive surface wear because
of cement. So its almost crucial to have alternative materials strengthen cement so this
problem becomes almost non-existent. So the three articles that I will be looking at
closely include alternative materials that will accomplish this problem. Between these

three articles, the materials include marine algae, soil bacteria, and bamboo and rice husk
ash.
Starting off with marine algae, the statistics of strength increase when marine
algae is applied are as follows. When cement is 10% of marine algae, theres a 4%
increase in strength. But when its 20% marine algae, theres a 3.5% increase in strength.
So as you can see from the results, theres a downfall in percentage when more marine
algae is applied to the cement. So the best scenario would be to only apply 10% of marine
algae into the cement. The hypothesis behind this experiment is that if the biomimicry
and biotechnological investigation is being conducted to create concrete the way nature
does with microorganisms and other bio-products in the environment, then a bioconcrete
would be a suitable substitute for cement based concrete and can be easily produced.
Which made the authors behind the article to believe that the biologically inducing
precipitation of calcium carbonate from bacteria, algae and fungi can solve the purpose.
What I thought was missing from this piece is more test groups. By that I mean they
should have added 30% and 40% marine algae so they can have more test groups to back
up their results more by having more evidence. But by just have two test groups, it
doesnt really confidently claim the results to be valid. One thing I also found
controversial was how marine algae werent technically the only material added to
influence the strength in the cement. The authors wrote that vitamins and other vital
materials were applied but they dont say what kind of vitamins or what kind of vital
materials were actually added with the marine algae.
The other two articles talk about soil bacteria, bamboo and rice husk ash as the
main alternative materials that strengthen cement. According to the results for soil

bacteria, the 28th day compressive strength of the bacterial cement mortar is found to
increase up to 18% when cured with water containing urea and up to 12% when cure with
water.