What is the History of the origin of cement?

History of the origin of cement:

Early uses

An early version of cement made with lime, sand, and gravel was used in Mesopotamia in the third millennium B.C. and later in Egypt. It is uncertain where it was first discovered that a combination of hydrated non-hydraulic lime and a pozzolan produces a hydraulic mixture (see also: Pozzolanic reaction), but concrete made from such mixtures was first used by the Ancient Macedonians and three centuries later on a large scale by Roman engineers. They used both natural pozzolans (trass or pumice) and artificial pozzolans (ground brick or pottery) in these concretes. Many excellent examples of structures made from these concretes are still standing, notably the huge dome of the Pantheon in Rome and the massive Baths of Caracalla. The vast system of Roman aqueducts also made extensive use of hydraulic cement.

1.      Although any preservation of this knowledge in literary sources from the Middle Ages is unknown, medieval masons and some military engineers maintained an active tradition of using hydraulic cement in structures such as canals, fortresses, harbors, and shipbuilding facilities. The technical knowledge of making hydraulic cement was later formalized by French and British engineers in the 18th century.

Modern cements

Modern hydraulic cements began to be developed from the start of the Industrial Revolution (around 1800), driven by three main needs:

• Hydraulic cement render (stucco) for finishing brick buildings in wet climates.
• Hydraulic mortars for masonry construction of harbor works, etc., in contact with sea water.
• Development of strong concretes.

In Britain particularly, good quality building stone became ever more expensive during a period of rapid growth, and it became a common practice to construct prestige buildings from the new industrial bricks, and to finish them with a stucco to imitate stone. Hydraulic limes were favored for this, but the need for a fast set time encouraged the development of new cements. Most famous was Parker's "Roman cement".This was developed by James Parker in the 1780s, and finally patented in 1796. It was, in fact, nothing like material used by the Romans, but was a "Natural cement" made by burning septaria – nodules that are found in certain clay deposits, and that contain both clay minerals and calcium carbonate. The burnt nodules were ground to a fine powder. This product, made into a mortar with sand, set in 5–15 minutes. The success of "Roman Cement" led other manufacturers to develop rival products by burning artificial mixtures of clay and chalk.

The National Cement Share Company of Ethiopia's new plant in Dire Dawa.

John Smeaton made an important contribution to the development of cements when he was planning the construction of the third Eddystone Lighthouse (1755–9) in the English Channel. He needed a hydraulic mortar that would set and develop some strength in the twelve hour period between successive high tides. He performed an exhaustive market research on the available hydraulic limes, visiting their production sites, and noted that the "hydraulicity" of the lime was directly related to the clay content of the limestone from which it was made. Smeaton was a civil engineer by profession, and took the idea no further. Apparently unaware of Smeaton's work, the same principle was identified by Louis Vicat in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Vicat went on to devise a method of combining chalk and clay into an intimate mixture, and, burning this, produced an "artificial cement" in 1817. James Frost, working in Britain, produced what he called "British cement" in a similar manner around the same time, but did not obtain a patent until 1822. In 1824, Joseph Aspdin patented a similar material, which he called Portland cement, because the render made from it was in color similar to the prestigious Portland stone.

Setting time and "early strength" are important characteristics of cements. Hydraulic limes, "natural" cements, and "artificial" cements all rely upon their belite content for strength development. Belite develops strength slowly. Because they were burned at temperatures below 1250 °C, they contained no alite, which is responsible for early strength in modern cements. The first cement to consistently contain alite was made by Joseph Aspdin's son William in the early 1840s. This was what we call today "modern" Portland cement. Because of the air of mystery with which William Aspdin surrounded his product, others (e.g., Vicat and I.C. Johnson) have claimed precedence in this invention, but recent analysis  of both his concrete and raw cement have shown that William Aspdin's product made at Northfleet, Kent was a true alite-based cement. However, Aspdin's methods were "rule-of-thumb": Vicat is responsible for establishing the chemical basis of these cements, and Johnson established the importance of sintering the mix in the kiln.

William Aspdin's innovation was counterintuitive for manufacturers of "artificial cements", because they required more lime in the mix (a problem for his father), a much higher kiln temperature (and therefore more fuel), and the resulting clinker was very hard and rapidly wore down the millstones, which were the only available grinding technology of the time. Manufacturing costs were therefore considerably higher, but the product set reasonably slowly and developed strength quickly, thus opening up a market for use in concrete. The use of concrete in construction grew rapidly from 1850 onward, and was soon the dominant use for cements. Thus Portland cement began its predominant role.

Around the same time in Russia, Egor Cheliev created a new binder by mixing lime and clay. His results were published in 1822 in his book A Treatise on the Art to Prepare a Good Mortar published in St. Petersburg. A few years later in 1825, he published another book, which described the various methods of making cement and concrete, as well as the benefits of cement in the construction of buildings and embankments.

In the US the first large scale use of cement was Rosendale cement, a natural cement mined from a massive deposit of a large dolostone rock deposit discovered in the early 19th century near Rosendale, New York. Rosendale cement was extremely popular for the foundation of buildings (e.g., Statue of Liberty, Capitol Building, Brooklyn Bridge) and lining water pipes. But its long curing time of at least a month made it unpopular after World War One in the construction of highways and bridges and many states and construction firms turned to the use of Portland cement. Because of the switch to Portland cement, by the end of the 1920s of the 15 Rosendale cement companies, only one had survived. But in the early 1930s it was discovered that, while Portland cement had a faster setting time it was not as durable, especially for highways, to the point that some states stopped building highways and roads with cement. Bertrain H. Wait, an engineer whose company had worked on the construction of the New York City's Catskill Aqueduct, was impressed with the durability of Rosendale cement, and came up with a blend of both Rosendale and synthetic cements which had the good attributes of both: it was highly durable and had a much faster setting time. Mr. Wait convinced the New York Commissioner of Highways to construct an experimental section of highway near New Paltz, New York, using one sack of Rosendale to six sacks of synthetic cement. It was proved a success and for decades the Rosendale-synthetic cement blend became common use in highway and bridge construction.