Cement

Cement is one of the core products of LCE.  Our company offers high performance cement to a wide array of customers. We would like to introduce you to the history of this versatile material that has become the core element of our modern day infrastructure.

As early as 3000 BC, Ancient Egyptians used mud mixed with straw to bind dried bricks. They also used gypsum or lime mortars - which they used in building the Pyramids. A little later in history, the Chinese developed other cementitious materials, which helped them to bind their bamboo together to build boats or join stones forming the Great Wall of China. By 800 BC, other countries like Rome, Crete and Cyprus used lime mortars as the main component in their building materials. In 300 BC, the Babylonians started using bitumen to bind stones and bricks. Many of these preliminary products cracked quickly when exposed to sunlight.

In the 17th century, the Romans combined other materials and produced Pozzolana Cement, made of a mixture of 1 part lime to 4 parts sand in addition to some volcanic material found in abundance near the Italian town of Pozzuli.

In the mid 19th century, Joseph Aspdin introduced what became known as Portland cement, a product named after Portland (UK) known for its quarries of high quality stones. The kiln entered into the construction industry and in 1886, the first rotary kiln was brought into use.

The 20th century brought along a marked boom in the cement industry accompanied by a standardization of basic cement tests in 1900. The demand for cement was on the rise and consequently, the production technology improved. In the twenties, world cement production was estimated at 60 MMT per annum. This figure rose to 133 MMT by mid-century, reached 1 billion in 1986, and was up to 1.8 billion by the beginning of the 21st century. Those numbers highlight the ever increasing potential of the cement industry both over the course of recent history and well into the future.