High-efficiency recovery and utilization of steel slag are important concerns for environmental protection and sustainable development. To establish a rapid method to evaluate the cementitious properties of steel slag, leaching tests were carried out on steel slag components via an evaporation-condensation method; the leaching characteristics and mechanism of the slag were also investigated. The relationship between leaching characteristics and cementitious properties, which were represented by mortar compressive strength, was analyzed. Results show that there exist significant differences among the amounts of chemically active leached components. The leaching process can be described by the shrinking unreacted core model controlled by intra-particle diffusion, and is in accordance with Kondo R hydration kinetics equation. The leaching process showed a good linear relationship between the amounts of components leached from steel slag and the mortar compressive strength of cementitious materials prepared from reference cement and steel slag with mass ratios of 50:50 and 70:30. The compressive strengths of mortars subjected to 7, 28, and 90 days of curing can be accurately predicted by the sum of leached (CaO+Al2O3) obtained after a certain length of leaching time. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.