Thermodynamics of calcined clays used in cementitious binders: origin to service life considerations

The use of calcined clays in construction materials has attracted significant attention in the last few years. Based on the continued need for sustainable construction to meet global development challenges, the green transition of the cement industry is an urgent necessity. The use of clay-blended cements will keep increasing to meet the need for mass quantities of materials and the prospect of reducing their embodied CO₂, as traditional supplementary cementitious materials are expected to decline in availability. To enable the necessary rapid increase in the fraction of clays that can be used in cements, the use of modeling tools which provide insights into the clays and their reactivity in cementitious systems is of increased interest. The aim is to predict the properties of the calcined clays based on the original rock and calcination conditions, the phase evolution, material properties, and durability of construction materials. This is crucial to reduce the time needed for development and commercialisation, whereas extensive empirical work has been used in the past to achieve material transition in the construction sector, which can be extremely time consuming. This review article therefore aims to provide an overview of available thermodynamic data, issues with database integration, modelling of process parameters, and properties prediction for cementitious materials.