Acid–base (AB) cements have been known since the mid 19th century. They are formed by the interaction of an acid and a base, a reaction which yields a cementitious salt hydrogel (Wilson, 1978) and offers an alternative route to that of polymerization for the formation of macromolecular materials. They are quick-setting materials, some of which have unusual properties for cements, such as adhesion and translucency. They find diverse applications, ranging from the biomedical to the industrial.

Despite all this there has been a failure to recognize AB cements as constituting a single, well-defined class of material. Compared with organic polymers, Portland cement and metal alloys, they have been neglected and, except in specialized fields, awareness of them is minimal. In this book we attempt to remedy the situation by unifying the subject and treating this range of materials as a single class.

Human interest in materials stretches back into palaeolithic times when materials taken from nature, such as wood and stone, were fashioned into tools, weapons and other artifacts. Carving or grinding of a material is a slow and time-consuming process so the discovery of pottery, which does away with the need for these laborious processes, was of the greatest significance. Here, a soft plastic body, potter's clay, is moulded into the desired shape before being converted into a rigid substance by firing.