Microstructural analysis of tricalcium aluminates C3A

Reference	Presenter	Authors (Institution)	Abstract
06-020	Tatiane Manke	Manke, T.(Universidade Federal de Pelotas); Moreira, M.L.(Universidade Federal de Pelotas); Cava, S.(Universidade Federal de Pelotas);	The main component of Portland cement is clinker, which may have more than one phase, changing its physical and chemical properties vary with the proportions present in the mixture. One of the present phases is the tricalcium aluminate (C3A), being the most reactive phase among the aluminates, which reacts instantaneously with the water in a few seconds, presenting fast hardening. In addition to being used as clinker, the C3A is a very refined material, and has been widely studied as a basis for applications in biomaterials, dentistry and orthopedic fields. Samples of C3A nanoparticulate powders were obtained by the polymeric precursor method. This method has been the object of numerous studies due to the lower cost to obtain them, particles of nanometric size and approximately spherical shape can potentialize their properties. For this study a variation was made in the proportion of aluminum nitrate and calcium nitrate with different calcination temperatures. Despite the studies carried out with this compound, in the literature there is a lack in microstructural analysis, due to this work focuses on the analysis of x-ray diffraction and micro-Raman spectroscopy. The X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the samples had the presence of the tricalcium aluminate and other secondary phases, besides the presence of inorganic materials characteristic of the process of obtaining the powders. Due to the lack of answers in the literature, it has not yet been possible to identify all the vibrations present in our micro-Raman spectroscopies. However, it is clear that there are severe spectra changes as a function of calcium and aluminum concentration as well as temperature. It is observed that some vibrational modes cease to exist to the detriment of the emergence of others indicating structural changes of local order for the compounds. This indicates that there is still much to research and find out about this compound.
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