[Image above] Cements 2024 Business Meeting Attendees Credit: ACerS
The American Ceramic Society’s Cements Division hosted the 14th Advances in Cement-Based Materials meeting from June 19–21, 2024, at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, Mo. The meeting welcomed 148 attendees.
Before the conference officially started on Wednesday, the organizers held a students and young professionals networking event on Tuesday evening at the Lion’s Club Park. The event invited attendees to socialize together and play games along with a pizza dinner.
Wednesday’s program opened with a presentation by the first keynote speaker, Shiho Kawashima, associate professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics at Columbia University, titled “Cement Rheology and Processing—why give a CRAP.”
Following the first keynote lecture, Division chair Will V. Srubar III presided over the Division’s business meeting. The updates included Division membership, meeting statistics, and discussion of participating in the joint ACerS Divisions’ 2026 Spring meeting in Bellevue, Wash.
Division chair-elect Prannoy Suraneni announced the 2024 Brunauer Best Paper Award, which recognizes the best cements paper published during the previous calendar year in the Bulletin or Journal of the American Ceramic Society. This year’s winning paper was “Evolution of C–S–H in lime mortars with nanoparticles: Nanostructural analysis of afwillite growth mechanisms by HRTEM” by Gomez-Villalba et al., published in JACerS.
The Division’s Early Career Award was presented to Prannoy Suraneni of Miami University.
Breakout sessions began after the business meeting, with topics including durability and service-life modeling, cement chemistry, sustainability and SCMs, and rheology and additive manufacturing.
Wednesday afternoon, Maria Juenger of The University of Texas at Austin presented the Della Roy Lecture on “The road to sustainable cement.” Juenger’s lecture was followed by the Della Roy Reception and poster session, sponsored by Elsevier. More than 20 presenters detailed their research.
Thursday morning began with a special session in honor of Edward Garboczi, who is retiring later this year, with presentations by Jeff Bullard, Joe Biernacki, and David Lange. Bullard’s presentation was titled “The Garboczi legacy: A computational physicist’s guide to cement and concrete.” Biernacki’s presentation was titled “Sustainability—more than macro: Could 3D printing of cement-based materials be
a sustainable solution to the housing crisis?” and Lange’s presentation was titled “The experiment graveyard.”
Friday’s sessions began with an industry panel discussion, which included Jeffrey Thomas of GCP Applied Technologies, Matthew D’Ambrosia of MJ2 Consulting, and Aida Margarita Ley Hernandez of ICON. The final break-out sessions of the conference followed.
The closing awards ceremony announced the poster session winners, who are listed below.
- First place: Sophia Liron Bergen, Princeton University, “Increasing the reactivity of abundantly available basalt for sustainable cements: Earth and beyond”
- Second place: Rebecca Mikofsky, University of Colorado Boulder, “3D-printable, sustainable concrete alternative using clay and biopolymer additives”
- Third place: Ishrat Baki Borno, The University of Texas at Arlington, “Role of crystallinity and Al-contents on the decalcification resistance of C-S-H and C-A-S-H”
The new ACerS Conference Mentor Program was also held at Cements 2024. The program aims to connect first-time conference attendees with experienced individuals who have frequently attended past ACerS events. There were 34 total participants at Cements 2024, and one participant reported that the program was “an enjoyable experience.”
The next Conference Mentorship opportunities will be at the 10th International Congress on Ceramics. Details on getting involved can be found by visiting the ACerS Conference Mentor Program webpage.
The meeting concluded with the announcement of the 2025 meeting location, which will be the University of Colorado in Boulder.
View more photos from the event on ACerS Flickr page. Check the ACerS website and the Bulletin in early 2025 for details about the 15th Advances in Cement-Based Materials meeting date and abstract submission deadline.