General Definition of Chemically Bonded Ceramics

From a scientific viewpoint, calling all room-temperature-setting materials as cements is a misnomer. Highly crystalline structures, such as phosphate ceramics, are synthesized by chemical reaction at room temperature. They are ceramics because of their crystaHine structure, while they are cements because they are formed at room temperature. We would classify such materials as CBCs. If silicates are used to form them, they will be called chemically bonded silicate ceramics. When phosphates are used to form them, they are chemically bonded phosphate ceramics (CBPCs). By using the acronyms CBC and CBPC, we avoid the debate over the words cements and ceramics as the last letter C will stand for either of them. 

This definition of CBCs was established by Della Roy and Rustum Roy [6,20,21]. While Della Roy emphasized formation of modified conventional hydraulic cements, Rusmm Roy used CBC to mean formation of more general ceramics made at room temperature by techniques such as ultrasonic signals in aqueous phosphate systems. We extend this generalization further to include all inorganic materials that are consolidated into a hard mass by chemical reactions and not by sintering. 

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