Synthesis, structure, and hydration of stoichiometric ye’elimite and iron-bearing ye’elimite

AbstractYe’elimite is the primary mineral component in calcium sulfoaluminate cements and is responsible for their early hydraulic reactivity. Herein, ye’elimite was synthesized using a novel method with CaSO4 as the sole CaO source to achieve high purity. Stoichiometric ye’elimite and iron-bearing ye’elimite were synthesized, with the highest purity obtained through sintering at 1250°C for 4 h. The crystal structure of iron-bearing ye’elimite was represented through dynamical disordering of the SO4 tetrahedron and Ca atom with the space group I4¯3m. Moreover, the early hydration behaviors of stoichiometric ye’elimite and iron-bearing ye’elimite reacting with and without gypsum were studied. In the absence of gypsum, stoichiometric ye’elimite reacts faster than iron-bearing ye’elimite. However, in the presence of gypsum, the hydration of the former is faster than that of the latter and the hydration rates of both these minerals are higher than those observed in the absence of gypsum.Keywords: stoichiometric ye’elimiteiron-bearing ye’elimitesolid-state synthesiscrystal structurehydration Disclosure statementThe authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by Shandong Provincial Key Research and Development Project (2022CXGC010701), State Key Laboratory of High-efficiency Utilization of Coal and Green Chemical Engineering Fund (2022-K51), and Shandong Provincial Science and Technology SMEs Innovation Capacity Improvement Project (2022TSGC2016).