The Evolution of Cement: The Inside Scoop on this Building Block of our World: a blog about the history and future of cement and how it relates to our daily lives.
The Evolution of Cement: The Inside Scoop on this Building Block of our World: a blog about the history and future of cement and how it relates to our daily lives.
The Evolution of Cement: The Inside Scoop on this Building Block of our World: a blog about the history and future of cement and how it relates to our daily lives.
The Evolution of Cement: The Inside Scoop on this Building Block of our World: a blog about the history and future of cement and how it relates to our daily lives.
The Evolution of Cement: The Inside Scoop on this Building Block of our World
A blog about the history and future of cement and how it relates to our daily lives.
The History of Cement
You might wonder what our world would be like without cement. Cement is one of the most widely used building materials in the world, and is second only to water as the most consumed substance on earth. But have you ever wondered where cement comes from? How it was invented? How it has evolved over time? If so, here’s your chance to learn more!
Cement dates back as far as 40 million years ago. The earliest traces of cement were found in Jordan, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and other Middle Eastern countries. It was here that scientists believe that lime-bearing rocks were crushed and mixed with water to create a natural form of cement. This “natural cement” was later discovered by the Romans in 200 BC and was used for construction purposes until the 4th century AD when the process for producing portland cement was perfected.
Portland Cement: The Bulk Building Material of Today
Today, portland cement is the most widely used building material in the world with about 1.56 billion tonnes produced annually (1). Portland cement is
In my last blog post I mentioned the evolution of cement from a mud-based building material to today’s modern powdered cements. Cement has come a long way, but the story doesn’t end there. There are more advances being made in the field of cement science that will have a huge impact on our lives and the world we live in.
One of the most exciting areas of research going on right now is in the development of “green” concrete. Concrete is currently one of the most environmentally unfriendly building materials available: it takes massive amounts of energy to produce and can’t be recycled or disposed of easily. Green concrete aims to reduce or eliminate these environmental impacts, while still providing all the benefits we’ve come to expect from concrete.
I have worked for a cement manufacturing company for almost 30 years and have been fascinated by the industry and materials my entire life. This blog is where I will be sharing some of the amazing stories about cement manufacture, cement composition, and the history of various types of cement. I hope that you enjoy reading this blog as much as I am enjoying creating it!
Have you ever wondered how concrete is made? If so, you’re not alone. With over 3.5 billion tons of cement produced around the world each year, concrete is probably the most popular building material on earth. In this blog post we’ll take a look at the history of cement and discover how it has evolved over the years to become what it is today.
The History of Cement: From Ancient Mortar to Modern Concrete
Mortar as a substance has been in use since prehistoric times, but it wasn’t until 1824 that the first modern recipe for cement was developed by British bricklayer Joseph Aspdin. Aspdin called his invention portland cement because it looked like quarried stone found near Portland Harbor in England.
For the next 100 years after Aspdin’s discovery people continued to experiment with different ingredients and production methods for making cement, all with varying degrees of success. Then in 1920 two major breakthroughs occurred that would revolutionize the industry forever: an Austrian engineer named Josef Mössbauer discovered how to produce portland cement using a limestone blend, and another Austrian engineer named Ernst Mössbauer created a new method for producing hydraulic cements using hydraulic limes
Cement is the glue that holds together concrete, our most widely-used construction material. Cement is made from limestone and clay, heated in a kiln to form clinker. This ‘raw meal’ is then ground into a powder which is mixed with water to make the paste that binds together sand, gravel and/or other aggregate particles to make concrete.
The type of cement used in concrete for general construction purposes is called Portland cement. Portland cement was named for its resemblance to stone quarried on the Isle of Portland off the coast of England. However, modern Portland cements are composed of much more than just ground lime and silica. They contain small amounts of other materials called “cementitious” materials like slag, fly ash, or pozzolan which enhance certain performance characteristics such as strength or durability.
As early as 1370 BC, builders in ancient Egypt used calcined gypsum as a binding agent in mortar. The Romans built roads using calcined volcanic ash mixed with lime as a binder, and pozzolanic tuffs were used by Greek and Roman builders. But it was not until 1756 that John Smeaton developed an improved hydraulic lime for use in building the Eddystone Lighthouse on the coast of Cornwall
Cement is the glue that holds together concrete, the most widely used man-made material in existence. It has been used for well over a thousand years, first in the form of lime and then in the form of Portland cement. Made from a mixture of elements such as calcium, silicon, aluminum and iron, cement is used to bind or coat materials such as aggregate (sand, gravel and rock) to create concrete.
Cement is sometimes called mortar or paste. Portland cement is probably our most common type of cement today. It makes up about 5% of the total volume of concrete, which means that for every 20 pounds of cement used in a concrete mix you get 1 cubic foot of cured concrete. Concrete is made by mixing the cement with aggregate and water – the water causes a chemical reaction known as hydration that hardens the mixture into a stone-like material. The amount of water you use will determine how strong your finished concrete will be – more water means weaker concrete and less water means stronger concrete.
You can make your own cement by heating limestone (calcium carbonate) with clay in a kiln until they fuse together into clinker. Then grind it up into powder – this is what we now call “Portland Cement”. There are