The cement most used is ordinary Portland cement. It is manu-factured by heating a mixture of finely powdered clay and limestone with water to a temperature of about 1200°C, at which the lime and clay fuse to form a clinker. This clinker is ground with the addition of a little gypsum to a fine powder of cement. Cement powder reacts with water and its composition gradually changes and the particles of cement bind together and adhere strongly to materials with which they are mixed. Cement hardens gradually after it is mixed with water.
Some thirty minutes to an hour after mixing with water the {cement} is no longer plastic and it is said that the initial set has occurred. About 10 hours after mixing with water, the cement has solidified and it increasingly hardens until some 7 days after mixing with water when it is a dense solid mass.
The gray powder that is the glue in concrete. Portland cement. Also, any adhesive.