Investigation of migration and self-healing ability of ion chelator in cement-based materials by a novel method

•The migration and self-healing abilities of ion chelator in mortar were investigated.•The effect of ion chelator on crack self-healing decreases with the increase of migration distance.•The migration of ion chelator can promote the formation of calcite crystals in the crack. Ion chelator can chelate calcium ions and migrate in cement-based materials to promote self-healing of cracks. This paper investigated the migration and self-healing abilities of ion chelator in cement-based materials by a novel method. In this method, control mortar without ion chelator and self-healing mortar with ion chelator are poured into the same mold, cracks at different locations of the two kinds of mortars are prefabricated, and the migration of ion chelator from self-healing mortar to the control mortar is assessed by observing the self-healing process of crack in control mortar. Meanwhile, the microstructure and chemical component of self-healing product in cracks at different locations of the control mortar was characterized through scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results show that the self-healing ability of control mortar is closely related to the migration distance of ion chelator. When the migration distance of the ion chelator was 2 cm, the crack with a width of 0.37 mm can be sealed after curing for 7 d. When the migration distance of the ion chelator was 5 cm, the crack with a width of 0.26 mm can also be repaired after curing for 7 d. Through SEM observation and XRD analysis, it can be found that the ion chelator promotes the formation of a large number of calcite crystals for sealing the cracks in the control mortar. However, the calcite crystals at the crack will become loose with the increase of the migration distance of the ion chelator.