Ye'elimite is the naturally occurring form of anhydrous calcium sulfoaluminate, . It gets its name from Har Ye'elim in

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

in the Hatrurim Basin west of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea ( he, יַם הַמֶּלַח, ''Yam hamMelaḥ''; ar, اَلْبَحْرُ الْمَيْتُ, ''Āl-Baḥrū l-Maytū''), also known by other names, is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank ...

where it was first found in nature by

Shulamit Gross Shulamit Gross (Hebrew: שולמית גרוס; lived 1 October 1923 – 19 Sep 2012) was an Israeli mineralogist and geologist who studied the Hatrurim Formation. Biography Gross was born as Shulamit Lifszyc in Grodno, Poland (today, Hrodna, B ...

, an Israeli mineralogist and geologist who studied the

Hatrurim Formation The Hatrurim Formation or ''Mottled Zone'' is a geologic formation with outcrops all around the Dead Sea Basin: in the Negev Desert in Israel, in the Judaean Desert on the West Bank, and in western Jordan. It includes late Cretaceous to Eocene aged ...

.Handbook of Mineralogy
/ref>
/ref> The mineral is cubic, with 16 formula units per

unit cell In geometry, biology, mineralogy and solid state physics, a unit cell is a repeating unit formed by the vectors spanning the points of a lattice. Despite its suggestive name, the unit cell (unlike a unit vector, for example) does not necessaril ...

, and a cell dimension of 1.8392 nm, and is readily detected and quantified in mixtures by powder

x-ray diffraction X-ray crystallography is the experimental science determining the atomic and molecular structure of a crystal, in which the crystalline structure causes a beam of incident X-rays to diffract into many specific directions. By measuring the angles ...

Occurrence in cement

It is alternatively called "Klein's Compound", after Alexander Klein of the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, who experimented with sulfoaluminate

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 mix ...

s around 1960, although it was first described in 1957 by Ragozina. Ye'elimite is most commonly encountered as a constituent of sulfoaluminate cements, in which it is manufactured on the million-tonne-per-annum scale. It also occasionally occurs adventitiously in Portland-type cements.A E Moore, ''Cement Technology'', 7 (1976) pp 85, 134 It is thus an anhydrous mineral of the

cement clinker 200px, Typical clinker nodules 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 sinte ...

whose idealized oxide formula is also written in the

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 o ...

(CCN). On

hydration Hydration may refer to: * Hydrate, a substance that contains water * Hydration enthalpy, energy released through hydrating a substance * Hydration reaction, a chemical addition reaction where a hydroxyl group and proton are added to a compound * ...

in the presence of calcium and sulfate ions, it forms the insoluble, fibrous mineral

ettringite Ettringite is a hydrous calcium aluminium sulfate mineral with formula: . It is a colorless to yellow mineral crystallizing in the trigonal system. The prismatic crystals are typically colorless, turning white on partial dehydration. It is part of ...

, which provides the strength in sulfoaluminate concretes, and/or monosulfoaluminate, and

aluminium hydroxide Aluminium hydroxide, Al(OH)3, is found in nature as the mineral gibbsite (also known as hydrargillite) and its three much rarer polymorphs: bayerite, doyleite, and nordstrandite. Aluminium hydroxide is amphoteric, i.e., it has both basic and ...

. It is manufactured by heating the appropriate quantities of finely-ground alumina, calcium carbonate and

calcium sulfate Calcium sulfate (or calcium sulphate) is the inorganic compound with the formula CaSO4 and related hydrates. In the form of γ-anhydrite (the anhydrous form), it is used as a desiccant. One particular hydrate is better known as plaster of Pari ...

to between 1100 and 1300 °C, preferably in the presence of small quantities of fluxing materials, such as Fe₂O₃. On heating above 1350 °C, ye'elimite begins to decompose to

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 Portl ...

calcium oxide Calcium oxide (CaO), commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, Caustic (substance), caustic, alkaline, crystalline solid at room temperature. The broadly used term "''lime (material), lime''" co ...

sulfur dioxide Sulfur dioxide (IUPAC-recommended spelling) or sulphur dioxide (traditional Commonwealth English) is the chemical compound with the formula . It is a toxic gas responsible for the odor of burnt matches. It is released naturally by volcanic activ ...

and

oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as wel ...

References

Aluminates Aluminium minerals Calcium minerals Cement Concrete Sulfate minerals Cubic minerals Minerals in space group 214 {{sulfate-mineral-stub

Occurrence in cement

See also

References