Difference Between Cement and Mortar

Cement vs Mortar
 

In earlier stages, people didn’t have sophisticated homes, and they used simple things found from the environment to build houses. But today there are many types of advanced materials and equipments, which assist in constructions. Cement is a marvelous material among them. Before developing high standard cements, which are in the market today, there were very primary types of cement made out from limestone. Earlier cements were not that stable, and they were not a great binding agent. However, today cement has evolved in such a way it has become a reliable building material.

Cement

Cement has a long-running history. It is a binding material used to bind things together often in building construction work. Its property to manipulate it as we want when it is mixed with water is remarkable. And then when it is allowed to dry it binds other material together and become a very hard substance. Further, there is no harm to the cement when it is exposed to water after it dries, and this property of cement makes it suitable for wider usages in building construction. As cementing material, people in the past have used a variety of substances from various sources. Egyptians used calcined gypsum as a cement material to build their pyramids. Ancient Greek and Roman people used heated limestone as cement material. Cement is a very fine grey powder and is the key ingredient of concrete. The cement producing process starts with collecting limestone and other raw materials. The limestone is combined with clay, and they are ground in a crusher. Sand, iron and bottom ash are also added to this mixture, and it is allowed to be ground into a fine powder. This fine powder is passed through a pre heater tower into a large kiln while heating. In the kiln, the mixture is heated to 1500 0C. Heating turns the mixture into a new product called clinker, which is like pellets. Clinker is then mixed with gypsum and limestone and ground to an ultra fine powder. Cement manufacturing requires large, powerful machinery and many simultaneous processes are involved. There are various types of cements such as Portland cements, Portland blend cements (Portland flyash cement, Portland pozzolan cement, Portland silica fume cement, expansive cement), non Portland hydraulic cements (super sulfated cement, slag-lime cement, calcium sulfoaluminate cement) etc.

Mortar

Mortar is a mixture of sand, cement, lime and water. When these are mixed together, a paste like mixture is formed, and it can be used for building purposes. Usually, this is the mixture used to fill the gaps between stone, bricks or blocks and which binds them together. This paste can be used in whichever way we want, and it hardens after it dries up. Ultimately it becomes very strong. When there were no cement, clay and mud were used as mortar in ancient times.