Investigation and comparison of calcium aluminate phases obtained by three methods of sol-gel (with EDTA), sol-gel (without EDTA) and solid-phase synthesis

In this study, we investigate calcium aluminate phases that were prepared by three different solid phase synthesis methods and a sol-gel method (with and without EDTA). The purpose of this study is to compare these three methods in terms of achieving higher purity, optimal phase and complexity in the production of the final product. Comparing the results, we found that the sol-gel method is more problematic than the solid-state synthesis. The phases prepared are: (CA), (C12A7), (C3A) and (CA2). In the sol-gel method, we have explored two different innovative regimens with EDTA. The results on the purity of the resulting phases and the effect of adding EDTA showed that, in general, the addition of EDTA leads to better purity. Quantitative x-ray diffraction analysis was used to determine the percentage of prepared calcium aluminate phases. The CA2 phase achieved 100% purity in the first preparation method in all three ways.