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Cement
A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mixed with fine aggregate produces mortar for masonry, or with sand and gravel, produces concrete. Concrete is the most widely used material in existence and is behind only water as the planet's most-consumed resource. Cements used in construction are usually inorganic, often lime- or calcium silicate-based, and are either hydraulic or less commonly non-hydraulic, depending on the ability of the cement to set in the presence of water (see hydraulic and non-hydraulic lime plaster). Hydraulic cements (e.g., Portland cement) set and become adhesive through a chemical reaction between the dry ingredients and water. The chemical reaction results in mineral hydrates that are not very water-soluble. This allows setting in wet conditions or u ...
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Portland Cement
Portland cement is the most common type of cement in general use around the world as a basic ingredient of concrete, mortar (masonry), mortar, stucco, and non-specialty grout. It was developed from other types of hydraulic lime in England in the early 19th century by Joseph Aspdin, and is usually made from limestone. It is a fine powder (substance), powder, produced by heating limestone and clay minerals in a kiln to form Clinker (cement), clinker, and then #Cement grinding, grinding the clinker with the addition of several percent (often around 5%) gypsum. Several types of portland cement are available. The most common, historically called ordinary portland cement (OPC), is grey, but white portland cement is also available. The cement was so named by Joseph Aspdin, who obtained a patent for it in 1824, because, once hardened, it resembled the fine, pale limestone known as Portland stone, quarried from the windswept cliffs of the Isle of Portland in Dorset. Portland stone was p ...
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Concrete
Concrete is a composite material composed of aggregate bound together with a fluid cement that cures to a solid over time. It is the second-most-used substance (after water), the most–widely used building material, and the most-manufactured material in the world. When aggregate is mixed with dry Portland cement and water, the mixture forms a fluid slurry that can be poured and molded into shape. The cement reacts with the water through a process called hydration, which hardens it after several hours to form a solid matrix that binds the materials together into a durable stone-like material with various uses. This time allows concrete to not only be cast in forms, but also to have a variety of tooled processes performed. The hydration process is exothermic, which means that ambient temperature plays a significant role in how long it takes concrete to set. Often, additives (such as pozzolans or superplasticizers) are included in the mixture to improve the physical prop ...
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Cement Kiln
Cement kilns are used for the pyroprocessing stage of manufacture of Portland cement, portland and other types of hydraulic cement, in which calcium carbonate reacts with silicon dioxide, silica-bearing minerals to form a mixture of calcium silicates. Over a billion tonnes of cement are made per year, and cement kilns are the heart of this production process: their capacity usually defines the capacity of the cement plant. As the main energy-consuming and greenhouse-gas–emitting stage of cement manufacture, improvement of kiln efficiency has been the central concern of cement manufacturing technology. Emissions from cement kilns are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for around 2.5% of non-natural carbon emissions worldwide. The manufacture of cement clinker A typical process of manufacture consists of three stages: * grinding a mixture of limestone and clay or shale to make a fine "rawmix" (see Rawmill); * heating the rawmix to sintering temperature (up t ...
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Lime Mortar
Lime mortar or torching is a masonry mortar (masonry), mortar composed of lime (material), lime and an construction aggregate, aggregate such as sand, mixed with water. It is one of the oldest known types of mortar, used in ancient Rome and ancient Greece, Greece, when it largely replaced the clay and gypsum mortars common to ancient Egyptian construction. With the introduction of Portland cement during the 19th century, the use of lime mortar in new constructions gradually declined. This was largely due to the ease of use of Portland cement, its quick setting, and high compressive strength. However, the soft and porous properties of lime mortar provide certain advantages when working with softer building materials such as natural stone and terracotta. For this reason, while Portland cement continues to be commonly used in new brick and concrete construction, its use is not recommended in the repair and Building restoration, restoration of brick and stone-built structures origin ...
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Clinker (cement)
image:LDClinkerScaled.jpg, 200px, Typical clinker nodules image:Hot Clinker 2.jpg, 200px, Hot clinker Cement clinker is a solid material produced in the manufacture of portland cement as an intermediary product. Clinker occurs as lumps or nodules, usually to in diameter. It is produced by sintering (fusing together without melting to the point of liquefaction) limestone and aluminosilicate materials such as clay during the cement kiln stage. Composition and preparation The Portland clinker essentially consists of four minerals: two calcium silicates, alite (Ca3SiO5) and belite (Ca2SiO4), along with tricalcium aluminate (Ca3Al2O6) and calcium aluminoferrite (Ca2(Al,Fe)2O5). These main mineral phases are produced by heating at high temperature clays and limestone. The major raw material for the clinker-making is usually limestone mixed with a second material containing clay as a source of alumino-silicate. An impure limestone containing clay or silicon dioxide (SiO2) can be used. ...
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Pozzolana
Pozzolana or pozzuolana ( , ), also known as pozzolanic ash (), is a natural siliceous or siliceous- aluminous material which reacts with calcium hydroxide in the presence of water at room temperature (cf. pozzolanic reaction). In this reaction insoluble calcium silicate hydrate and calcium aluminate hydrate compounds are formed possessing cementitious properties. The designation pozzolana is derived from one of the primary deposits of volcanic ash used by the Romans in Italy, at Pozzuoli. The modern definition of pozzolana encompasses any volcanic material ( pumice or volcanic ash), predominantly composed of fine volcanic glass, that is used as a pozzolan. Note the difference with the term pozzolan, which exerts no bearing on the specific origin of the material, as opposed to pozzolana, which can only be used for pozzolans of volcanic origin, primarily composed of volcanic glass. Historical use Pozzolanas such as Santorin earth were used in the Eastern Mediterranean ...
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Alite
Alite is an impure form of tricalcium silicate, , sometimes formulated as ( in cement chemist notation), typically with 3-4% of substituent oxides. It is the major, and characteristic, phase in Portland cement. The name was given by Alfred Elis Törnebohm in 1897 to a crystal identified in microscopic investigation of Portland cement. Hatrurite is the name of a mineral that is substituted . Composition and structure The alite found in Portland cement differs in composition from simple tricalcium silicate. It is a solid solution and contains minor amounts of other oxides besides CaO and . A typical composition is: Based on this, the formula can be expressed as . In practice, the composition varies with the bulk composition of the clinker, subject to certain limits. Substitution of calcium ions or orthosilicate ions requires that electric charges be kept in balance. For instance, a limited number of orthosilicate () ions can be replaced with sulfate () ions, provided th ...
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Cement Chemist Notation
Cement chemist notation (CCN) was developed to simplify the formulas cement chemists use on a daily basis. It is a shorthand way of writing the chemical formula of oxides of calcium, silicon, and various metals. Abbreviations of oxides The main oxides present in cement (or in glass and ceramics) are abbreviated in the following way: Conversion of hydroxides in oxide and free water For the sake of mass balance calculations, hydroxides present in hydrated phases found in hardened cement paste, such as in portlandite, Ca(OH)2, must first be converted into oxide and water. To better understand the conversion process of hydroxide anions in oxide and water, it is necessary to consider the autoprotolysis of the hydroxyl anions; it implies a proton exchange between two OH−, like in a classical acid–base reaction: : + → + or also, :2 OH− → O2− + H2O For portlandite this gives thus the following mass balance: :Ca(OH)2 → CaO + H2O Thus portlandite can be written as ...
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Mortar (masonry)
Mortar is a workable paste which hardens to bind building blocks such as stones, bricks, and concrete masonry units, to fill and seal the irregular gaps between them, spread the weight of them evenly, and sometimes to add decorative colours or patterns to masonry walls. In its broadest sense, mortar includes pitch, asphalt, and soft clay, as those used between bricks, as well as cement mortar. The word "mortar" comes from the Old French word ''mortier'', "builder's mortar, plaster; bowl for mixing." (13c.). Cement mortar becomes hard when it cures, resulting in a rigid aggregate (composite) , aggregate structure; however, the mortar functions as a weaker component than the building blocks and serves as the sacrificial element in the masonry, because mortar is easier and less expensive to repair than the building blocks. Bricklayers typically make mortars using a mixture of sand, a binder, and water. The most common binder since the early 20th century is Portland cement, but ...
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Tricalcium Aluminate
Tricalcium aluminate Ca3Al2O6, often formulated as 3CaO·Al2O3 to highlight the proportions of the oxides from which it is made, is the most basic of the calcium aluminates. It does not occur in nature, but is an important mineral phase in Portland cement. Properties Tricalcium aluminate forms upon heating a 3:1 mixture of calcium oxide and aluminium oxide above 1300 °C. The crystals are cubic, with unit cell dimension 1.5263 nm and has density 3064 kg·m−3. It melts with decomposition at 1542 °C. The unit cell contains 8 cyclic Al6O1818− anions, which can be considered to consist of 6 corner sharing AlO4 tetrahedra. The structure of pure liquid tricalcium aluminate contains mostly AlO4 tetrahedra in an infinite network, with a slightly higher concentration of bridging oxygens than expected from the composition and around 10% unconnected AlO4 monomers and Al2O7 dimers. In Portland cement clinker, tricalcium aluminate occurs as an "interstitial phase ...
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Calcium Silicate
Calcium silicate can refer to several silicates of calcium including: *CaO·SiO2, wollastonite (CaSiO3) *2CaO·SiO2, larnite (Ca2SiO4) *3CaO·SiO2, alite or (Ca3SiO5) *3CaO·2SiO2, (Ca3Si2O7). This article focuses on Ca2SiO4, also known as calcium orthosilicate, or by the shortened trade name Cal-Sil/Calsil. All calcium silicates are white free-flowing powders. Being strong, cheap and nontoxic, they are components of important structural materials. Production and occurrence Calcium silicates are produced by treating calcium oxide and silicon dioxide, silica in various ratios. Their formation is relevant to Portland cement. Calcium silicate is a byproduct of the Pidgeon process, a major route to magnesium metal. The process converts a mixture of magnesium and calcium oxides as represented by the following simplified equation: : The calcium oxide combines with silicon as the oxygen scavenger, yielding the very stable calcium silicate and releasing volatile (at high temperatures) ...
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Belite
Belite is an industrial mineral important in Portland cement manufacture. Its main constituent is dicalcium silicate, Ca2SiO4, sometimes formulated as 2 CaO · SiO2, SiO2 (C2S in cement chemist notation). Etymology The name was given by Alfred Elis Törnebohm in 1897 to a crystal identified in microscopic investigation of Portland cement. Belite is a name in common use in the cement industry, but is not a recognised mineral name. It occurs naturally as the mineral larnite, the name being derived from Larne, Northern Ireland, the closest town to Scawt Hill where it was discovered. Composition and structure The belite found in Portland cement differs in composition from pure dicalcium silicate. It is a solid solution and contains minor amounts of other oxides besides CaO and SiO2. A typical composition:Taylor H.F.W. (1990), ''Cement Chemistry'', Academic Press, 1990, , pp. 10-11. Based on this, the formula can be expressed as Ca1.94Mg0.02Na0.01K0.03Fe0.02Al0.07Si0.90P0.01O ...
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