In mathematics, quantales are certain partially ordered algebraic structures that generalize locales (point free topologies) as well as various multiplicative lattices of ideals from ring theory and functional analysis (C*-algebras, von Neumann algebras). Quantales are sometimes referred to as complete residuated semigroups. In mathematics, quantales are certain partially ordered algebraic structures that generalize locales (point free topologies) as well as various multiplicative lattices of ideals from ring theory and functional analysis (C*-algebras, von Neumann algebras). Quantales are sometimes referred to as complete residuated semigroups. A quantale is a complete lattice Q with an associative binary operation ∗ : Q × Q → Q, called its multiplication, satisfying a distributive property such that