Using quartz as cement

Not sure, but you did mention 'millons of years'. How much time do you have?

Portland cement does in a day what calcite takes millions of years, there's that.

theres only a few different "cements" in sedimentary rocks

1.Those that are made of clay minerals, These are plate like sequences of silicate minerals and water that form stacked " flat
crysyalline Sheets" of micas and mica clays forming like a pile of pizzas. Theseare "plate or leaf like silicate minerals" (called phylosilicates) .They gradually set and undergo hardening (diagenesis) with overburden heat and pressure to form claystones, siltstones, flysch , graded sandstones and conglomerates and breccias.

2Another ""cleaner" form of sandstone and white siltstones, are "cemented" by forms of silicic compounds called natural silanes and siloxanes. These are actually hardened liquids and form rocks that, when struck, can actually ring. We used to create musical instruments like xylophones in the lab. using tubes of silane/siloxane that would "set" and the tones imparted were a function of the length of the silane/oxane in the tubes.

Wed been involved in research to evaluate entombing leaded nuke waste into large "blocks" of silane /siloxane. It was highly stupid isea but , like all science, we lerned a lot about properties of **** like buckeyballs, liquid crystals and glass foams.

You can use any clay to mix in with sand, but it will usually retain its ability to turn to mud unless it reaches a unique "curie" point temp for that clay.Like the difference tween stoneware and porcelain pottery. Its all in the baking and, in rocks, the pressure imparted by a 2.5 mile thick pile of geology.

You might ask'Ok smart ass, what about cement???", well, cement (portland pozzolonic mixes) are made of hydrated limes and hydrated mixes of limestones (They get baked at over 500 degrees C)

They will reset and set up water proof crystals because of their unique chemistry. Concrete is made up of a mixture of very low magnesium, high calcium hydroxide and polymers that will actually reach over 200 degrees C while setting . You can get burned from this stuff and I recall one project I was part of, where some kiln design guys had kiln dust they were hauling off in trucks and it began to rain torrentially. One of the truck bodies actually blew up as the kiln dust re- hydrated. IT was truly awesome and nobody got hurt, but the trucks were destroyed. They mae a "WHUMP" sound as they pile of kiln dust expanded like popcorn.

That's exactly the kind of understanding I was looking for, thanks a lot for sharing it.

So let me see if I get it, cement is all about crystal formation, a certain kind of crystal that is insoluble and can somehow stick itself against gravel and other constituent rocks. In the case of Portland cement, it's calcium silicate hydroxide, kinda similar to calcite. Can I ask for for further insight on the processes involved in the formation of these crystals and any methods on artificially reproducing them?

If you want the actual crystallography, I suggest getting any resource about the various types of portland cement (The silicA is a particulate not a xhemical constituent). Pozzoloni (Whre cement really began as a Roman poduct that contained volcanic ash WAS a chemical siliCATE) > just remember silica and silicate are two different compounds. One is a molecule (SiO2), and the other is an anion( SiO4= or HSi O3=). Ithink ASTM 1560 is the actual ASTM "recipe" for non-pozzolonic (Portland) cement 1,2,3 and any other mixes.
The recipes vary so much because of new additives and removed things (like Mg is reduced to make its crystal more tetrahedral (which 2 of which make a hex crystal).

hexagonal

If it aint 1560, its one of them in the 1500 list.

ASTM=American Society for Testing and Materials.
It has everything from toothpaste to RDX.

Let us know what ya came up with , are you trying to emulate some kind of antique look ? The real old antique outer concretes that they used for log cabin patch, was using a LOT of lime (Many folks had built their own lime kilns and they can be quite dangerous if you inhale dut). They also used ANIMAL HAIR and ash. It was pretty groaty ****.
Good Luck.

Im already aware about much of the process involved in the creation of Portland cement (and that Roman cement contains aluminum tobermorite, which makes it very resistant to salt water), I'm aware too of the functions of pozzolans (such as fly ash).

I, well, the title might be a little misleading (sorry bout that), I actually simply became quite fascinated with the idea of creating insoluble rocks basically from scratch (I already made artificial calcite rocks using calcium carbonate dissolved in vinegar, I'm currently trying to grow hematite crystals). So I just wish to push the limits of what is possible and practical.

I'm currently testing a hypothesis of grinding down silica sand much as possible to make a sort of mud out of it and firing it up to see if any crystals form (similar to clay).

P.D: I also already made my own Portland concrete from white ash (calcium carbonate), pretty simple actually, just get a bunch of uncontaminated white ash, put it in water and make a ball out of it, fire it in a charcoal fire with a blower until it glows red, you now have calcium oxide (careful, it reacts with water), and let it cool. Finally, mix it with clay, sand and gravel and add water to get calcium hydroxide, which will react with the clay and sand to form calcium silicate hydroxide.

get a P chem book for ceramics science and you can learn to do the stoichiometry, because Im always amazed at how the processes in cement mills were anything but "bucket chemistry". (I used to be an"on call" mining geologist for severl quarries in Pa ,Md and W Va) where we were always "sweetening" the mixes so as to get rid of the Mg . The analyses are not perfect you understand. Many times we rely on stuff like benzyl and butyl polymers and Ammonium Nitrate to balance the stoichiometry and wind up with a good quarry bank.

Im curious, how do you actually determine your crystallinity? do you have acees to a XRF or EDX? Tell ya the dirty truth, much of cement crystallography is still a mess because its in the "crypto" xline family. I used to make "thin sections" and look at it under a petrographic microscope where you can actually see that the tobermorite had two or three linear phases (like feldspars) and thee were more distinct if the mix was exposed to an energetic process.

Also, Id get some hematite and look at its many phases that are possible. Theres a whole bunch of research now thats looking at helical crystals of Hematite and taconite to see whether these early forms werent host to beginning "life" on earth. Ive seen ankerite/Siderite and aragonite helices that actually look like growing masses in fossil form.

Be aware of the many levels of hydration of the calcium/Mag forms (like trihydro and pentahydro--calcites) each has different properties in water solubility (or resistance to it).

Have fun.

We see spines and acicular "needles" but much of the real xlinity goes in between Ortho and hex and Im not sure whether the Xlinity is even important (look at glass).

Did you look at an ASTM entry ??


My wife makes some of the "fake TUFA" pots for rustic garden vases that he plants groun covers in among her shade beds. I had her use a "touch of Ammonium Nitrate to make the mix work out better while till retaining its light weight.

Oh yeh, also spnd some time with the "solid glasses" that I mntiond above. Silane and Siloxane are good enhancers in anything we can create. They especially enhance solubility resistance since they are, after all, a form of non xline quqrtz.

Sorry for the delayed response. To be frank, I have barely started understanding crystals and minerals (I'm a mechanical engineer), my only tool is a lab optical microscope and what I do, is simply make small samples of my product, break it into smaller pieces and observe them, try to compare what I see with online samples and what the bonding arrangement should be.

For example, I know i got calcite crystals because i consistently got trigonal crystals and my cemented rocks resisted dissolving a lot better than my aragonite crystals. Simply letting them grow out of vinegar is all you need.

My assumption that I managed to create something very close to Portland cement is that I made samples with both, industrial cement and my own, wood ash cement and I consistently got similar compressive strengths and they were equally resistant to dissolving and erosion (using the same kind of gravel).

As you speak of it, is magnesium deleterious to proper, insoluble crystal formation?

The magnsium , in certain physical aspects, is delleterious to concrete durability (Theres better detailing in ASTM C289 and ASTM C666 .Short answer is that certain types of dolomite and dolomitic calcite have higher porosity in their concrete form. These pockets of high porosity will cause whole areas of cracked concrete especially in slab forms like paving. The higher porosity forms are like kutnahorite and a few other more esoteric "kiln made minerals" . The easy thing is to exclude the spcific high porosity rock forms by flotation. >Its kinda funny because we can artificially aid concrete durability by additions of liquid magnesium salts like MgSO4. an make temperature extending (Freeze point lowering) by adding MgCl2.

Im no expert, I just did a couple of stints as a consulting geologist for concrete companies in Mexico and Germany(Where I was more interested in the beer), because their labs had all the stuff needed for pretty sophisticated assays .


PS, you can add to your personal"carbonate" lab test kit with more than acids. If you make up a test bottle of cobalt nitrate and when your samples are dried out. medicine droplets of some of the cobalt nitrate (say a 1:10 solution) onto the sample. The aragonite will turn lilac as it forms a cobalt carbonate more easily than the calcite

Any idea on what exactly causes this porosity in dolomite? I got this neat book called "Dana's textbook on mineralogy" and I'm having a headache by just realizing how complex this subject really is. Also what do you mean with "lilac"? (Forgive my ignorance).

Lately, I've been using a press to compact pulverized roasted mud (to eliminate organic material) with my CaC3 solution and I've been getting much stronger stones, even without firing.

So will the cobalt nitrate react with calcium carbonate to get Cobalt carbonate? What is going on and exactly how does this help?

P.D: lol I feel you, I'm trying to catch some wild yeast to make some homemade brew.
Thanks for the help so far too, been giving me some good info to work with and think of

A crystal compound of Calcium is bigger (ionic radius) and results in crystals that bind in stronger lattices than say Magnsium. The differences arent rel great but enough to affect the porosity property. At least thats the way I recall it. The cobalt nitrate reacts with Mg compounds better and imparts this light purplish blue color (I sometimes substitute lilac for light purplish blue). Thats all.
In the field we always do ore and mineral report with a color numbering system called a Munsel number (This color is based on a system based on paint pigment and soil colors).

Dana is actually a system of identifying minerals, its over 150 years old and just keeps expanding as new minerals are discovered or created.

It was never too complete on the silicates though. For Silicates wwve always referred to a seris of texts (on the silicate family) by three guys ,DEER,HOWIE and ZUSMANN. You can look up silicate minerals in Wikepedia and its heavily based on DH&Z

Ok, I'm starting to get a clearer picture of things. Let's talk a bit about clay, if you will. The way I know, clay is basically alumina and silica sand that has become grounded to nano scale particles, the lack of air holes is what makes these fine dust stick when wet (water is acting as the adherent here), the atoms are tightly packed, causing van der Waals forces take hold.

If there's NO chemical precipitation happening here (clay is insoluble in water), why is firing the whole thing producing crystal formations?

heres a popularly written dicussion of clay firing that isnt providing too much technical ceramic chemistry. (Ill dig one of the clay chemistry sites that get all mathematical but that doesnt help understand anything unless youre a stuent of phase rule an thermo0


HERES A GOOD DISCUSSION RE: LOSS OF WATER AND FIRING OF A CLAYBODY

Thanks for the link. So this texture I've seen so far in all sedimentary rocks is just basically "sintering"? Heat simply helps in the development of a "matrix of intersecting, needle crystals", so tightly packed, they basically act as a sort of microscopic velcro (even water has trouble traversing it's pores) and held together by mechanical force, but most importantly, the incredible surface area of the crystal network would create an equally huge van der Waals adherence and cohesion, sort of like the feet of geckos.

I suppose the heat is the key in the creation of bonding and lattices. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if heated too high, then lattices would then polymerize and vitrification would occur, giving me an amorphous body or how it's normally called, glass (the fundamental difference between igneous and sedimentary rocks).

P.D: What is phase rule? And I also know a bit about thermodynamics.

ya, van der waals AND Casimir polder effects. In geology e call the wholeprocess "diagenesis". or the creation of rock under sedimentary conditions (excluding erosion and just shy of metamorphism).
Hres a nice little summary of diagenesis that a colleague up at Hofstra uses in sedimentology classes.

click here

PS, some of these words , like "clasts" are jut occupational jargon. We say clasts when we dont want to say "chunks"

The Glossary of Geology 6th ed is compiled by the American Geological Institute and you can look through it on the web if any words need more definition.