Thermodynamics and kinetics of calcium sulphoaluminate

The formation process of calcium suphoaluminate(C4A3S) was investigated by the X-ray diffraction technique and then the thermodynamics was analyzed, finally the kinetics of which was studied by SC-132. XRD results show that the formation of C4A3S is accomplished in three different kinds of ways: one is by solid reaction of Ca (OH)2/CaO, Al2O3 and CaSO4, other two ways are through such interstitial products as CaO·Al2O3 and CaO·2Al2O3. The formation thermodynamics shows that C4A3S begins to form at 900 °C–1 000 °C and increases as temperature rising; the quantity of reaches the highest at 1 300 °C–1 350 °C and then falls at >1350°C. Kinetics study shows that the formation rate of C4A3S can be described as first-order kinetics at high temperature, and it belongs to the random nucleation growth mechanism. The apparent activation energy is 456.37 kJ·mol−1 and pre-exponential factor is 1.545×1012.