Kathmandu University

Cement Technology

Cement Production

Dr. Ziaul Haque Ansari

Department of
Chemical Science and Engineering
Personal information
Office: Building 9

Mobile: 9818884185

Email: ziaul.ansari@ku.edu.np

Textbook/References:

1. B. Kohlhaas, Otto Labahn, “Cement Engineers' Handbook” 4th

English edition, Bauverlag GMBH Wiesbaden and Berlin1.

2. G.T. Austin, “Shreve’s Chemical Process Industries”, 5th edition.

Mc Graw Hill Book Co., New York.
INTRODUCTION

Cement is broadly described as material having adhesive and

cohesive property with capacity to bond the material like
stone, bricks, building blocks etc.

Cement is a binder, a substance that sets and hardens

independently, and can bind other materials together.

Cements are inorganic material that shows the cementing

properties of setting and hardening when mixed with water.

Cement is prepared from calcareous (Ca) material and

argillaceous (Al + Si) material.
 History
In the ancient world

The Egyptians used calcined gypsum as a cement and

Greeks and Romans used lime made by heating limestone and

added sand to make mortar, with coarser stones for concrete.

Romans:
This cement was made by adding crushed volcanic ash to lime
and was later called a "pozzolanic" cement, named after the
village of Pozzuoli near Vesuvius.

In places where volcanic ash was scarce, such as Britain,

crushed brick or tile was used instead.
 History

John Smeaton, (1759)

build the Eddystone lighthouse

off the coast of Cornwall in Southwestern England, found that a

mix of lime, clay and crushed slag from iron-making produced a
mortar which hardened under water.
History
 History
Joseph Aspdin patented in 1824 for
"Portland Cement,“

a material he produced by firing finely- William Aspdin

ground clay and limestone until the
limestone was calcined.

He called it Portland Cement because the concrete made from it looked like
Portland stone, a widely-used building stone in England.
History
In 1845, Isaac Johnson made the first modern Portland Cement
by firing a mixture of chalk and clay at much higher temperatures,
similar to those used today.

At these temperatures (1400 C -1500C), clinkering occurs and

minerals form which are very reactive and more strongly
cementitious.
Introduction

Three important developments in the manufacturing process lead

to modern Portland cement:

• Development of rotary kilns

• Addition of gypsum to control setting

• Use of ball mills to grind clinker and raw materials

Introduction
Rotary kilns

Heat the clinker mainly by radiative heat transfer and this is

more efficient at higher temperatures, enabling higher burning
temperatures to be achieved.

the clinker is constantly moving within the kiln,

• a fairly uniform clinkering temperature is

at around the start of the 20th century

• gypsum addition to control setting and

• use of ball mills to grind the clinker
Introduction
a

Difference between Cement (left) and

clinker (right). The coin is about 23mm
across.
Basic Definitions
Clinker: Portland cement is made by grinding clinker and a little added gypsum.
Clinker is a nodular material before it is ground up. The nodules can be anything
from 1mm to 25mm or more in diameter.

Cement: Usually taken to mean Portland Cement, but could mean any other type
of cement, depending on the context.

Aggregate: Cobbles, pebbles, gravel, sand and silt - the 'rock' component of all
particle sizes in concrete.

Concrete: Synthetic rock made using cement (usually, but not necessarily,

Portland cement) mixed with aggregate and water.

Mortar: Mixture of cement and fine aggregate, mainly sand. Used typically to bond
bricks and building stone.

Grout: Mixture of cement (possibly of various types) and other fine material such
as fine sand. Used in a wide range of applications from filling the gaps between
bathroom tiles to oil wells.
 Classifications
Based on source of cement

1. Natural cement
2. Artificial cement

1. Natural cement

Natural cement is obtained by burning and crushing of 20-40% clay,

carbonate of lime and small amount of magnesium carbonate.

It is brown in colour and best variety known as Roman cement.

The natural cement resembles very costly element hydraulic lime and
sets very quickly and strongly as compare to artificial cement.

It finds very limited application

 Classifications Based on source of cement

2. Artificial cement
It obtained by burning of calcareous mixture at very high temperature.

Mixture of ingredients should be intimate and in correct proportion.

Calcined product is known as Clinker.

A small quantity of gypsum added to clinker and pulverized to fine

powder is known as cement or ordinary cement or normal setting
cement.

After setting, this cement closely a variety of sandstone which is

found in abundance in Portland in UK.

Therefore, it is also known as Portland cement.

 Classifications
Based on broad sense cement

1. Natural cement
2. Puzzolana cement
3. Slag cement
4. Portland cement

1. Natural cement

It is prepared from naturally occurring lime stone by heating it to a

high temperature and subsequently pulverizing it.

During heating both siliceous and calcareous material are oxidized

and combined to give calcium silicates and calcium aluminates.
 Classifications Based on broad sense cement

2. Puzzolana cement

Since the beginning of the Christian era,

Italians successfully employed pozzuolana cement, made by grinding
2 to 4 parts of a pozzuolana with 1 part of hydrated lime.

A Pozzuolana is a material which is not cementitious in itself but

becomes so upon admixture with lime.

The natural pozzuolanas are volcanic tuffs; the artificial ones are
burnt clays and shales.

They mainly contains silicates of aluminum, iron and calcium.

It is the material which when mixed with lime without heating gives
hydraulic cement.
 Classifications Based on broad sense cement

3. Slag cement
It is made by mixing blast furnace slag and hydrated lime.

Furnace slag largely contains silicates of calcium and aluminum

which is granulated by pouring it into cold water.

Later it is dried and mixed with hydrated lime and the mixture is finally
powdered to increase the rate of setting.

Accelerator like clay, salt or caustic soda may be added.

 Classifications Based on broad sense cement

4. Portland cement

It is refine powder of calcined product of clay and lime stone.

It has controlled composition and therefore setting property.

It is named after the paste of cement with water which resembled in

colour and hardness to the Portland stone.
 Classifications

Based on the application, appearance and constituent of cement

1. Acid resistance cement

2. Blast furnace cement
3. Coloured cement
4. White cement
5. Rapid hardening cement
6. High alumina cement
7. Puzzolana cement
8. Hydrophobic cement
9. Expanding cement
10. Low heat cement
11. Quick setting cement
12. Sulfate resisting cement
Cement Manufacture
Cement Manufacture
 Cement Manufacture

The most commonly used composition on % basis by mass for the

Portland cement manufacturing is given below
 Cement Manufacture Significance of constituents
Lime

consist of calcium oxide and small amount of magnesium oxide.

It is prepared by calcining the lime stone (CaCO3) at temperature that

it will slake, when brought in contact with water.

It is principal constituent of cement.

Proper amount of lime is important as excess of it reduces the

strength as well as lesser amount also reduces the strength and
makes its quick setting.
 Cement Manufacture
Silica

It imparts strength to cement.

Alumina

It works as an accelerator and makes the cement quick settling.

Gypsum (Calcium sulfate)

It retards the setting action of cement but enhances the initial setting
time.

Iron oxide

It provides colour, strength and hardness of cement.

 Cement Manufacture Significance of constituents
Iron oxide

It provides colour, strength and hardness of cement.

Magnesia

If present in small amount impart hardness and colour to cement

Sulfur trioxide

If present in small amount it imparts soundness to cement but excess

of it is undesirable

Alkalis
Most of the alkalis present in raw materials are carried away by the
flue gases during heating and cement contains only a small amount of
alkalis. If present in excess causes the efflorescent to cement.
Cement Manufacture
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CEMENT MANUFACTURE
Cement Rock Beneficiation.

• process for obtaining cement kiln charges of correct chemical and

physical composition,

• for all types of cement manufacture,

• from available raw materials which may be either inferior or

actually unusable.

The trend in cement composition has been toward higher silica, lower
alumina, less alkali, and more iron.
CEMENT MANUFACTURE

Chemically these specification changes result in a cement with

• slower setting time,

• less heat of hydration, and
• more resistance to alkaline earths and waters.

The complete beneficiation process involves a combination of

grinding, classification, flotation, and thickening operations, each
adapted to satisfy the specific requirements of the cement desired
and the peculiar characteristics of the individual raw materials.
 Cement Manufacture
Cement Plant

There are several conveyors which are bringing the limestone from the
quarry or from the delivery unit to the limestone stacking yard, okay. From
the stacking yard, this limestone will go towards the crushing unit.
 Cement Manufacture
Cement Plant

From the crusher, the material is stored in a temporary silo.

Cement Manufacture
Preheater tower

From the preheater tower, the materials come into rotary kiln.

The tube here is the heat recovery tube which is actually taking the heat
from the cooling process back into the preheater.
 Cement Manufacture

Rotary kiln

steel tubes,
inner side of kiln is lined with refractory bricks
diameter 2.5-3.0 meter, length 90-120 meter.
inclined position at gradient of 1 in 25 to 1 in 30,
rotation at 1-2 rpm at its longitudinal axis.
 Cement Manufacture
Rotary kiln

The raw mix or corrected slurry is injected into the kiln from its upper
end.

Burning fuel like powdered coal or oil or hot gases are forced through
the lower end of the kiln so long hot flame is produced.

Due to inclined position and slow rotation of the kiln, the material
charged from upper end is moving towards lower end (hottest zone) at
a speed of 15meter/hour.

As gradually descends the temperature is rises.

Cement Manufacture
• Upper part, (drying zone), 400 C temperature
water or moisture in the material is evaporated

• Central part (calcination zone), 1000C,

decomposition of lime stone takes place.

CaCO3  CaO + CO2

Lower part (clinkering zone) 1500-1700 C

lime and clay react to yield calcium aluminates and calcium

silicates.

This aluminates and silicates of calcium fuse to gather to form small

and hard stones are known as clinkers.
Cement Manufacture
The size of the clinker varies from 5-10mm.

2CaO + SiO2  Ca2SiO4 (dicalcium silicate (C2S))

3CaO + SiO2  Ca3SiO5 (tricalcium silicate (C3S))
3CaO + Al2O3  Ca3Al2O6 (dicalcium aluminate (C2A))
4CaO + Al2O3 + Fe2O3  Ca4Al2Fe2O10 (tetracalcium
aluminoferrite(C4AF))

As clinkers are coming from burning zone, they are very hot.

The clinkers are cooled down by air admitting counter current

direction at the base of rotary kiln.
 Cement Manufacture

Grinding Ball mill

Cooled clinkers are ground to fine powder in ball mill.

2-3% powdered gypsum is added as retarding agent during final

grinding. So that,
resulting cement does not settle quickly, when comes in contact with
water.

Gypsum retards the dissolution of tri-calcium aluminates by forming

tricalcium sulfoaluminate which is insoluble
.
3CaO.Al2O3 + xCaSO4.7H2O  3CaO.Al2O3.xCaSO4.7H2O

Portland pozzolan cement PPC, large quantity of fly ash is added.

Cement Manufacture

Material stored in the silos and finally

dispatched
Cement Manufacture

MANUFACTURE

It involves the following steps

1. Mixing of raw material
2. Burning
3. Grinding
4. Storage and packaging

1. Mixing of raw material

Mixing can be done by any one of the following two processes

(a) Dry process

(b) Wet process
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PROPERTIES

 Tricalcium Silicate (C3S):

Hardens rapidly and is largely responsible for initial set and early strength.
In general, the early strength of Portland cement concrete is higher with
increased percentages of C3S.
 Dicalcium Silicate (C2S):
Hardens slowly and contributes largely to strength increases at ages
beyond 7 days.
 Tricalcium Aluminate (C3A):
Liberates a large amount of heat during the first few days of hardening and
together with C3S and C2S may somewhat increase the early strength of
the hardening cement. It affects setting time.
 Tetracalcium Aluminoferrite (C4AF):
Contributes very slightly to strength gain. However, acts as a flux during
manufacturing. Contributes to the colour effects that makes cement gray.
Cement Manufacture
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION

 Ratio of percentage of lime to that of silica, alumina and iron oxide

shall be in between 0.66 - 1.02 which is calculated by the formula as
follow

 Ratio of percentage of alumina to that of iron oxide shall not be

less than 0.66
 Weight of insoluble residue shall not exceed 2%
 Weight of magnesia shall be less than 6%
 Total sulfur content shall not be more than 2.75%
 Total loss on ignition shall not exceed 4%.
Cement Manufacture
PHYSICAL REQUIREMENT

Setting time
Initial : Not less than 30 minutes
Final : Not more than 600 minutes

Compressive strength
Compressive strength of 1:3 cement mortar cube of cement
and sand.
3 days : Not less than1.6 kg/mm2
7 days : Not less than 2.2 kg/mm2
Cement Manufacture