The appearance of fair-faced concrete is crucial, and it can be enhanced by incorporating an appropriate amount of mineral admixture. Different mineral admixtures have varying effects on the appearance quality of fair-faced concrete. For instance, the addition of fly ash helps control color differences and bubble formation on the concrete surface, while slag powder effectively controls its color and finish. In this review, the impact of using various mineral admixtures, such as silica fume, rice husk ash, limestone powder, and seashell powder, in fair-faced concrete on its appearance quality is examined. The effective combination of mineral admixtures made from industrial by-products or solid waste with fair-faced concrete can pave the way for new directions in the green and sustainable development of construction materials. This review also discusses the difficulties in objectively measuring the appearance quality of concrete and the various methods for the acquisition and evaluation of appearance images. New techniques for acquiring and evaluating information about concrete surfaces have been developed with advancements in image acquisition and processing technology. These techniques complement traditional manual inspection methods. The 3D Alicona system is advantageous for identifying air bubbles on concrete surfaces, the atomic-force microscope detects surface roughness, and the Orbital large-format scanner is ideal for use in large-scale engineering applications. Also, evaluation methods for different image processing software are presented in this article. This information offers a useful reference for future research and practical application.

Textile sludge has complex components and certain toxicity, which is in urgent need of resource treatment. The effect of textile sludge replacing cement and aggregates on the properties of polypropylene fiber concrete has been investigated by testing the compressive strength, drying shrinkage, heavy metal leaching concentration, micro morphology, and nanomechanical properties. The results show that the utilization of 10% textile sludge replacing cement increases the later strengths of concrete and decreases the drying shrinkage due to its denser microstructure. With the further content increase of textile sludge replacing cement, the strengths of concrete are reduced and the drying shrinkage is increased. The utilization of textile sludge replacing aggregates increases the compressive strengths of concrete and the drying shrinkage at every age, and among them, the concrete with 15% textile sludge replacing aggregates shows the highest compressive strengths, and the drying shrinkage of concrete increases with the content increase of textile sludge replacing aggregates. The concrete with textile sludge is a good solidification with heavy metal ions. The utilization of 10% textile sludge replacing cement improves the microstructure of concrete and helps to produce more high-density calcium silicate hydrate and reduces the thickness of the interfacial transition zone.