Study on the preparation and properties of belite-ye'elimite-alite cement

Belite-ye'elimite-alite (BYA) cement is a type of an environment-friendly binder with less CO2 emission in manufacturing process and has the durative development of strength in hydration stage. In this paper, BYA clinkers were well prepared by adding barium oxide. A combination of X-ray diffraction (XRD), the Rietveld methodology, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)-thermogravimetric (TG) analysis and scanning electron microscopy (SEM)-energy dispersive spectra analysis (EDS) was used to investigate the composition and quantitation of clinker phase. Strength tests were also conducted to study the mechanical properties in the hardened cement pastes. The results indicate that BYA clinker prepared at 1380 °C with 5 wt% of ferrite phase contained 25.6 wt% of ye'elimite coexisting with 9.3 wt% of alite. The characteristic diffraction peak of ye'elimite shifts to the left as barium replaces calcium in all the clinker specimens. In addition, the trace element of barium is more tend to incorporate into other clinker phases than alite. Compressive strength of BYA cement increases by 20.4 MPa from 3 d to 28 d. It is beneficial for the improvement of the mechanical properties of BCSA cement at medium hydration ages.