Cement & binders

Additives for specialty binders

We provide a variety of raw material additives used to enhance the properties of Portland cement.

Portland cement is produced by sintering (fusing together without melting to the point of liquefaction) limestone, sand, and aluminosilicate materials such as Kaolin clay to produce cement clinker. Clinker is then ground with additives, such as limestone and gypsum, to form Portland cement. These additives reduce specialty binder production costs and lower CO₂ emissions. Additionally, kaolin clays can be used as a source of alumina and wollastonite can be used as a source of calcium and silica, while providing the added benefit of reduced CO₂ emissions compared to limestone.

Our ARGICAL® range of metakaolin reduces porosity and efflorescence, brings brightness compatible with white, light-colored, or aesthetics products, increases strength and durability. Metakaolin and improves the CO₂ footprint when used as an additive to reduce substitute cement clinker content. The pozzolanic reactivity of metakaolin refers to its ability to react with calcium hydroxide which is formed during cement hydration.

For more than a century, we have produced calcium aluminates for the building industry, renowned for their exceptional properties and important role in advances of materials and formulation technology. Alumina cements, or high alumina cements, are obtained by the reaction at high temperature of lime (from limestone) and alumina (contained in natural minerals like bauxite). The product obtained after cooling is a hard mineral: calcium aluminate clinker. When crushed or screened, it can be used as an aggregate. The composition and color, ranging from the purest white to jet black, depends on the proportion of each raw material. Ground into a fine powder, the clinker becomes calcium aluminate cement (CAC) which forms a paste when mixed with water. This has the ability to harden very quickly: it forms a rigid solid within 24 hours.

As binders, calcium aluminates are used in concrete and mortars for their properties of resistance to corrosion, abrasion and heat combined with rapid hardening and the ease of controlling grading variations. Calcium aluminate cements are also used in combination with other fine components to obtain hydraulic binders with new properties. In this way, aluminates act as both a complex hydraulic binder and a mineral reagent interacting with the other components in the mix.