Roman cement

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Roman cement (or Roman lime , romancement ) is now a historical building material that is only used in restoration and hydraulic engineering .

properties

Roman cement is a hydraulic (water-hardening) binder with a very short setting time . Roman cement is not cement in today's sense, but is comparable to highly hydraulic limes (water limes ) or trass and other pozzolan limes .

history

It has been known since ancient times that lime binders, which are burned from natural limes contaminated with clays ( lime marl ), or to which brick flour is added, have hydraulic properties. It was not until the Englishman John Smeaton (1724–1792) pointed out in 1759 that the addition of pozzolanic (volcanic) additives could be dispensed with, and in 1774 he used such lime when building the lighthouse of Eddystone . Based on this discovery, the Englishman James Parker (born before 1780 - died after 1807) from Northfleet invented a hydraulically hardening product that he had burned from Septarienton , a very clay limestone marl, mined near London , and patented it as Romancement (although the Romans only knew the similar Opus caementitium ). Previously, pozzolanic additives were known as “cement”, but “romancement” was the binding agent itself. The raw material was heated just until sintering . Nature and mode of action were scientifically elucidated in 1830 by Johann Nepomuk von Fuchs .

Since hydraulic building materials could now be produced without imported volcanic components or expensive brick powder, the search began in many places for natural clay limestone with good hydraulic properties. When the material could be recognized with sufficient certainty, the manufacture from England quickly spread to other countries.

Roman cement was the preferred binding agent in Europe from 1800 to 1850 before it was replaced by Portland cement, which was also invented in England (this, too, was originally not a “real” cement after the discovery of Louis-Joseph Vicat and the patent of Joseph Aspdin in 1825 modern sense, but artificial roman cement - up to the sintering of overbaked cement is only known since Isaac Charles Johnson around 1850).

Usage today

In contrast to Portland cement - high quality - Roman cement is free of gypsum (sulphate of lime) and cement (silicate of lime). Today Roman lime is used for the maintenance of historical monuments ( wall painting , historical floors , coloring). Due to its quick stiffening and the absence of sulfur, it is also used to seal springs, water ingresses and for structures in flowing water. Further applications are in restoration as a casting mortar with very high imaging accuracy, as a supplementary mortar for sandstone, as a backfill compound or pore and crack-filling slurry.

Due to the supraregional importance that roman cements in the 19th and early 20th centuries BC a. played for plastering and facade ornamentation, as well as because of the building physics highly interesting properties of these binders, the European Union has funded two successive projects to revive the novel cement technology: ROCEM (2003-06) and ROCARE (2009-12). The results were presented at a conference on May 2, 2013 in the Mauerbach Charterhouse . The organizer was the “Information and Further Education Center for the Preservation of Monuments Carthusian Monuments Mauerbach” of the Austrian Federal Monuments Office in cooperation with the “Association for the Promotion of Architectural Preservation” and the EU project ROCARE.

literature

  • Friederike Klemm: Roman cement - a 19th century building material that was mistakenly believed to be lost? In: Restauro . tape 113 , no. 6 , 2007, p. 372-376 ( IRB Z 1681 , baufachinformation.de).
  • 31210 Roman cement . In: Kremer Pigments GmbH & Co. KG (Ed.): Mortar and other building materials . ( kremer-pigmente.de - product description).
  • Marija Milcin: Cast elements made from Roman cement. An attempt to rediscover historical mortar recipes . In: Gabriela Krist, Martina Griesser-Stermscheg; University of Applied Arts, Institute for Conservation and Restoration (Ed.): Conservation Science and Restoration Today . Conservation Science-Restoration-Technology 7. Böhlau, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-205-78579-8 , p. 129-134 .
  • Christian Gurtner, Johannes Weber: Roman cement. The rediscovered link between hydraulic lime and Portland cement . In: Restauro . Journal for restoration, monument preservation and museum technology . No. 4 , 2013, p. 24-33 .
  • Thomas Köberle: Württemberg - an early center of European roman cement production. Via an exceptionally versatile binding agent. In: Preservation of monuments in Baden-Württemberg. 41st year 2012, issue 4, pp. 237–241 denkmalpflege-bw.de (PDF)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b cement. In: Meyers Konversationslexikon . 4th edition, 1885-1892. Volume 16, p. 866.
  2. ↑ Florian Riepl: The economic and technological development of the cement industry with special consideration of the merits of Hans Hauenschild . Vienna June 2008, The history of cement development from the early beginnings to the invention of Portland cement - 3.6 The development of Portland cement, p. 23 ff . ( othes.univie.ac.at [PDF; 5.2 MB ] Diploma thesis).
  3. ↑ 31900 Roman limestone - wall sludge H 1. (No longer available online.) Kremer Pigments, formerly in the original ; accessed on November 8, 2008 (details, safety data sheet).  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.kremer-pigmente.de  
  4. ↑ ROCARE
  5. ^ Event "Roman cement, quicklime and lead" on May 2, 2013.