Guest Editorial

Cement and concrete symbolise the achievements of civil engineering in the industrial age. This special issue of Advances in Applied Ceramics highlights a selection of the papers presented at the 30th Cement and Concrete Science Conference that was held at the University of Birmingham between the 13 and 15 September 2010. The meeting was organised by Dr Liam Grover, Dr Michael Hofmann, Dr Herbert Rossetto and Dr Alan Smith on behalf of the Cementitious Materials Committee of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3).

Over one hundred participants at the conference had the opportunity to learn about the latest developments in cement research. Of the thirty speakers at the meeting half were from international institutions, some as far away as Brazil and Australia, emphasising the truly international character of this exciting area of research. The conference included traditional cement themed sessions focussing on developments in: pozzolanicity and admixtures, characterisation, hydration and microstructure and environmental issues and durability of cements. Additionally, for the first time in its thirty-year history, an entire session was dedicated advances in the field of biocements, a rapidly growing area of cement research with immense clinical and commercial relevance.

Key presentations were identified by the conference organisers and guest editors and authors were invited to submit an extended version of their work for consideration in the special issue. The result has been an excellent collection of papers representing the wide scope of the meeting.

The papers by Gordon et al. and Shirley et al. both highlight novel developments of cements used for environmental purposes, the first examines the durability of geopolymers for use as carbon capture solvent1 while the second characterises the stabilisation of cements used for air pollution control.2 Cordeiro et al. reports on the modification of pozzolanic activity of cement additives by ultrafine wet grinding.3 A series of four papers highlight crucial developments in the fast growing area of cementitious materials for orthopaedic and dental applications. Two papers by Tan et al. evaluate the possibility of controlled degradation of bioresorbable calcium phosphate bone cement by introducing defined macropores4and the potential of calcium aluminate cements for hard tissue replacement5 while Garcia et al. characterise a novel commercial calcium aluminate cement for dental applications.6 Finally, Vorndran et al. examine the exciting possibility of generating biodegradable magnesium phosphate based structures by 3D printing for use as a bone substitute7.

As a Guest Editor for Advances in Applied Ceramics I would like to thank all authors and reviewers whose dedicated work made this special issue possible. I feel especially indebted to Emma Leighton, the Managing Editor at Maney Publishing, for her advice, guidance and patience.