Calcined clay–substituted sustainable cement binders: a holistic review

The inclusion of clays in concrete not only reduces the production of Portland cement (PC) and the consumption of raw materials but also offers an alternative to PC that can significantly lower CO₂ emissions during calcination, along with requiring relatively less thermal energy compared to PC production. This effect can considerably reduce global warming and climate change issues. This paper reviews the effect of calcined clay (CC) substitution, particularly calcined bentonite (CB) and metakaolin (MK), on the fresh (including reaction characteristics), fundamental mechanical, and durability (including permeability, and acidic and corrosion attack resistance) properties. The economic and sustainability analyses are also conducted. Finally, their practical applications in infrastructure construction to produce sustainable and green concrete are reviewed. Initially, a systematic analysis was performed on statistical data available on the Scopus database to study the detailed census of the published data and the same data was imported into VOSviewer software to draw network visualization charts.