# Engineering Properties of Colorful Mortar with Inorganic Color Paste
## 3 Results and Discussion  
1. Slump  
As shown in Figure 3, the slump value of the control group mortar without inorganic color paste is 0.1 cm, and the slump values of the colorful mortar with different color contents are higher than 8 cm; thus, the effect of inorganic color paste on the slump is relatively obvious. The composition of dispersant in the inorganic color paste is similar to the composition of a water-reducing agent and the water content and dispersant content in different color pastes are unclear, so the colorful mortar with inorganic color paste has higher slump. When the content of inorganic color paste increases from 5% to 10%, the slump growth rates of yellow, green, white, red, blue and black are 2.9, 5.0, 10.0, 10.5, 14.3, and 18.2%. When the substitution amount increases from 10% to 15%, the slump growth rates increase from 5% to 10%, meaning 5% to 10% have a relatively obvious growth rate; this may because the influence of dispersant content in the inorganic color paste on the mortar has been maximized, and thus the increase in content has no obvious help. Therefore, the growth amplitude is small when the content is 15%, and the black inorganic color paste has the most obvious effect on slump value among various colors, the yellow inorganic color paste has insignificant influence on slump, and overall the inorganic color paste can increase mortar slump, contributing to the workability of mortar. (2) Slump flow  
As shown in Figure 4, the slump flow of the control group is 11.5 cm, and the slump flows of colorful mortars with 5%, 10% and 15% red inorganic color pastes are 26.8, 26.9 and 27.2 cm, meaning the slump flow increases with content. When the content of inorganic color paste is 10%, the slump flows of the colorful mortars in different colors (red, yellow, green, blue, white, and black) are 26.9, 28.4, 25.5, 26.8, 26.6 and 28.5 cm, respectively. The slump flows of various colors are larger than the control group and larger than 25 cm,  
Figure 3: Slump of mortar with different proportions of inorganic color paste. meaning the inorganic color paste can effectively enhance the workability of mortar. As the slump flows in this test are larger than the upper limit 25 cm of the test instrument, a concrete slump plate is fixed above the instrument to enlarge the data measuring area. As shown in Table 4 and Figure 5, the compressive strength of mortar increases with age. The compressive strengths of the control group mortar at the ages of 3 days 28 days and 120 days are 33.81, 38.57 and 41.2 MPa. The growth of compressive strength during the age of 3 to 28 days is about 12.34%, and the growth during the age of 28 to 120 days is about 6.82%. The compressive strengths of colorful mortar with 10% red inorganic color paste on Day 3, Day 28 and Day 120 are 15.97, 26.75 and 38.36 MPa. The compressive strengths of colorful mortar with 10% yellow inorganic color paste on Day 3, Day 28 and Day 120 are 15.81, 33.54 and 40.92 MPa. The compressive strengths of colorful mortar with 15% black inorganic color paste on Day 3, Day 28 and Day 120 are 14.68, 30.68 and 39.09 MPa. The growth of compressive strength during the age of 3 days to 28 days is 40.3-52.86% and the growth during the age of 28 days to 120 days is 22-43.4%; there is significant growth compared to the control group. This may because the addition of inorganic color paste results in excessive mixing water, the porosity in the specimen is increased, the compressive strength decreases at a short age, and the compressive strength increases with age due to cement hydration and polyacrylic emulsion hardening [22]. At the age of 28 days, the compressive strengths of color cement with 5%, 10% and 15% red inorganic color pastes are 31.14, 26.75 and 23.21 MPa, the compressive strengths of color cement with yellow inorganic color paste are 34.31, 33.54 and 33.15 MPa, the compressive strengths of black inorganic color paste are 31.74, 30.68 and 29.08 MPa.