Advanced Concrete Technology — Lecture 1: Cement

Production (Part 1)
Research-level lecture notes (generated from [Link])

Introduction & Scope

• Advanced Concrete Technology Dr.
• Manu Santhanam Department of Civil Engineering Indian Institute of Technology – Madras Lecture - 01
Cement Production - Part 1 Welcome to the first chapter in our course on advanced concrete technology.
• Today , we will be talking about cement production and as I was indicating earlier I have also highlighted
the sections from the textbook which have the relevant information.
• I hope that some of you have been able to procure the textbook already and those of you have not don e
so already I hope that you will be getting it soon.
• So it will help if you read this content before you come for class , so that you can participate actively and
contribute to the class discussion.
• As I was indicating earlier , this textbook has been writ ten very well and it is written in a language that is
easy to understand without using too much very highly technical or research oriented jargon, it is probably
intended for massive use as a textbook all over the world .

History & Early Binders

• monuments if you think about them have different types of binders which are binding the different
masonry units .
• Mostly , lot of our heritage monuments are in stone and brick and these masonry units were bound
typically by binders which were based either with lime or some binders were based on gypsum and
sometimes even Bitumen has been used in the past quite significantly , and in some cases the use of
pozzolanic materials was also quite prevalent in the past.
• Now of course t oday we have very specific categories of pozzolans and how they are supposed to be
used in concrete, how they are processed .
• There is a very clear cut understanding of how the system actually works , but in the past people had
used pozzolans quite inadvert ently.
• For example , in Greece and Italy there were several examples of the use of volcanic ash as an
ingredient to the lime mortar and the people who were using it found that the use of volcanic ash gave the
lime mortar very good properties in terms of imp roved strength and applicability and so on .
• So, because of that there was inadvertent use of pozzolans in the past but today of course when we look
at , think about pozzolans, there are several different pozzolans that come to our mind today.

Raw Materials & Chemistry

• monuments if you think about them have different types of binders which are binding the different
masonry units .
• Mostly , lot of our heritage monuments are in stone and brick and these masonry units were bound
typically by binders which were based either with lime or some binders were based on gypsum and
sometimes even Bitumen has been used in the past quite significantly , and in some cases the use of
pozzolanic materials was also quite prevalent in the past.
• Now of course t oday we have very specific categories of pozzolans and how they are supposed to be
used in concrete, how they are processed .
• There is a very clear cut understanding of how the system actually works , but in the past people had
used pozzolans quite inadvert ently.
• For example , in Greece and Italy there were several examples of the use of volcanic ash as an
ingredient to the lime mortar and the people who were using it found that the use of volcanic ash gave the
lime mortar very good properties in terms of imp roved strength and applicability and so on .
• So, because of that there was inadvertent use of pozzolans in the past but today of course when we look
at , think about pozzolans, there are several different pozzolans that come to our mind today.
Clinker & Mineral Phases
• It is more C3S okay more C 3S why because , we want faster setting and faster strength gain .
• Primarily , we want high early strength so most cements today are engineered to obtain a very high early
strength. “Professor - student conversation ends.” In the past , it was not this case I mean in the past
people were willing to wait for a longer period of time for their structures to come up , which is actually a
very positive attribute .
• But today we move d from the test match generation to the T20 generation , so we want everyth ing
quickly.
• So while in the past people were willing to cure concrete for 28 days and today we have curing done for 3
days , probably no curing at all , people want the concrete to be ready right after it is poured so anyway the
upshot is that cement has un dergone massive changes in the past 100 years and because of that today it
is a completely different kind of material .
• Now of course you know the story quite well that it was named Portland cement because once cement
hardened and set after reacting with water , it had an appearance which is similar to Portland limestone in
the United Kingdom, it has got nothing to do with the city of Portland.
• It is actually some stone which is called Portland limestone in Dorset , United Kingdom .

Manufacturing Process
• So now you know that , these kinds of kilns are no l onger used . “Professor - student conversation
starts.” What type s of kilns are used today?
• We use rotary kilns which are basically very large drums which are rotating at a very slow speed and the
advantage of that is you feed in the material at one end , it comes out at the other end without the need for
any additional energy input .
• And secondly since it is a continuous process because the material comes in at one end, leaves at the
other end so you can continuo usly keep feeding the material. “Professor - student conversation ends.” In
a vertical kiln like this obviously you have to wait for entire burning to take place, remove your material
from inside and then again have the next batch placed in , so the amount of material that you can produce
in a vertical kiln is quite limited .
• And on the right you have this microscopic image of the sample of clinker that was actually collected by
researchers from this kiln and you can see from this that the kind of components that we see in modern
cement are still t here, A is basically Alite or tricalcium silicate C 3S, B is Belite or dicalcium silicate C 2S.
• Now there is a certain difference in the kind of Alite’s and Belite’s that are actually there.
• I will tell you later as to what the primary differences are in te rms of the crystal sizes and the reactivities
that was found in the older cement and how it is different from the modern cement .

Kiln Types & Process Details

• So now you know that , these kinds of kilns are no l onger used . “Professor - student conversation
starts.” What type s of kilns are used today?
• We use rotary kilns which are basically very large drums which are rotating at a very slow speed and the
advantage of that is you feed in the material at one end , it comes out at the other end without the need for
any additional energy input .
• And secondly since it is a continuous process because the material comes in at one end, leaves at the
other end so you can continuo usly keep feeding the material. “Professor - student conversation ends.” In
a vertical kiln like this obviously you have to wait for entire burning to take place, remove your material
from inside and then again have the next batch placed in , so the amount of material that you can produce
in a vertical kiln is quite limited .
• And on the right you have this microscopic image of the sample of clinker that was actually collected by
researchers from this kiln and you can see from this that the kind of components that we see in modern
cement are still t here, A is basically Alite or tricalcium silicate C 3S, B is Belite or dicalcium silicate C 2S.
• Now there is a certain difference in the kind of Alite’s and Belite’s that are actually there.
• I will tell you later as to what the primary differences are in te rms of the crystal sizes and the reactivities
that was found in the older cement and how it is different from the modern cement .

Environmental Impact
• So they went to the kiln that was used by William Aspdin for burning and you can see that this is the type
of kiln that was used.
• Since this is a shaft which is quite similar to what we have for typical limestone kilns .
• So this is actually called a vertical shaft kiln , so you feed in the material at the bottom and it is getting
heated and the carbon dioxide goes up from the top and ultimately you essentially get calcium oxide which
is remnant or quick lime.
• And this quick lime was again processed probably with additions of several other components to get your
cement.
• Now of course that the quicklime is obtained in a limestone kiln but in the cement kiln , what Aspdin
would have done is mix the limeston e and clay together and fed in as charge and then heat it for a certain
amount of time after which the material was pulled out and then you would have obtained the Portland
cement clinker from that .

Packaging & Standards

• All this must be done to produce a commodity product that sells for 6 to 8 rupees a kilogram , okay , I
think our 50 kilogram cement bag is about 390 rupees . “Professor - student conversation starts.”
Interesting question aga in why 50 kilograms?
• Why is the cement bag weighing 50 kilograms?
• Easy to handle, have you tr ied handling 50 kilograms?
• For labours it is easy to handle, believe me it is not, one person lifting 50 kilograms can be a back
breaking exercise.
• Even 2 people lifting it can be a fairly difficult one, why 50 kilograms ?
• The equivalent cement bag weight in the United State where they use still an old system of units, pounds
, it is 94 pounds okay , our’s is not as bad 50 kilograms.

Blended Cements & Performance Improvers

• monuments if you think about them have different types of binders which are binding the different
masonry units .
• Mostly , lot of our heritage monuments are in stone and brick and these masonry units were bound
typically by binders which were based either with lime or some binders were based on gypsum and
sometimes even Bitumen has been used in the past quite significantly , and in some cases the use of
pozzolanic materials was also quite prevalent in the past.
• Now of course t oday we have very specific categories of pozzolans and how they are supposed to be
used in concrete, how they are processed .
• There is a very clear cut understanding of how the system actually works , but in the past people had
used pozzolans quite inadvert ently.
• For example , in Greece and Italy there were several examples of the use of volcanic ash as an
ingredient to the lime mortar and the people who were using it found that the use of volcanic ash gave the
lime mortar very good properties in terms of imp roved strength and applicability and so on .
• So, because of that there was inadvertent use of pozzolans in the past but today of course when we look
at , think about pozzolans, there are several different pozzolans that come to our mind today.

Additional Notes / Observations

• Limestone is calcium carbonate and when you burn calcium carbonate you remove carbon dioxide and
get calcium oxide which is your quick lime which serves as a binding material , right .
• So now this obviously was a precursor to the development of Portland cement , and there are several
people who have used different variations of cement in the past , okay.
• Now one first name that comes to our mind is that of John Smeaton.
Key Chemical Reactions (with notes)
Calcination: CaCO3 → CaO + CO2↑ (Calcination at ~900–1000 °C). Major source of process CO2.
C3S hydration (alite): 2 C3S + 7 H2O → 3 C-S-H + 3 Ca(OH)2 (fast; early strength)
C2S hydration (belite): 2 C2S + 5 H2O → 3 C-S-H + Ca(OH)2 (slow; long-term strength)
Aluminate + Sulfate: C3A + 3 CaSO4·2H2O + 26 H2O → C6A S3H32 (ettringite) — gypsum controls
aluminate reaction.
Diagrams (schematic)

Simplified flowchart: quarry → packing

Rotary kiln zones and flow

Clinker mineral phases

Research notes & standards (highlights)
• Global cement production ~4,000 million tonnes/year; China produces ~35–40%. India ~260 million
tonnes/year.
• Cement related CO2 ≈ 1 t CO2 per t clinker; overall cement industry ~7–8% of global CO2 emissions.
• Modern plants: dry-process rotary kiln with preheater and precalciner; efficient heat recovery via coolers.
• Standards: IS 269 (India) for Portland cement; PLC and blended cements reduce clinker factor.

Generated automatically from [Link]. Diagrams are schematic aids for study.