Analysis of Chemical Composition of Portland Cement in Ghana: A Key to Understand the Behavior of Cement

The performance of Portland cement in concrete or mortar formation is very well influenced by chemical compositions amongother factors. Many engineers usually have little information on the chemical compositions of cement in making decisions for thechoice of commercially available Portland cement in Ghana. This work analyzed five different brands of Portland cement in Ghana,namely, Ghacem ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and Portland limestone cement (PLC), CSIR-BRRI Pozzomix, Dangote OPC, andDiamond PLC. The chemical compositions were analyzed with X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectrometer. Student’s?-test was used totest the significance of the variation in chemical composition between standard literature values and each of the commercial cementbrands. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was also used to establish the extent of variations between chemical compositions andbrand name of the all commercial Portland cement brands. Student’s?-test results showed that there were no significant differencesbetween standard chemical composition values and that of commercial Portland cement. The ANOVA results also indicated thateach brand of commercial Portland cement varies in terms of chemical composition; however, the specific brands of cement hadno significant differences. The study recommended that using any brand of cement in Ghana was good for any construction worksbe it concrete or mortar formation