Concrete continues to evolve for construction. Today, cement is one of the leading greenhouse gas contributors in the world. Now, a major development could potentially change the global environmental and productivity footprint of concrete technology.
Traditional cooling techniques aren’t always successful at mitigating all of the heat-management problems. Often excessive energy is used for cooling in many pours for bridges, dams, facilities, and embankments. Also, concrete is often scrapped due to large cracks, as well as exceeding placement and maximum temperature designs.
Current technology uses silica fume and other silicas to increase strength. However, these do not reduce the heat of hydration. Cure retarders are also well known to increase working time and delivery range. However, these do not increase strength or eliminate the excessive heat that causes challenges today.
To help, CoolCure is a patent-pending technology that significantly reduces and eliminates the heat of hydration. This is done by balancing the chemistry of the material. The heat is reduced by minimizing the calcium hydrozide byproduct generation. The calcium hydrozide is better used, creating more reinforcing bonds instead of creating heat.
This creates a more efficient reaction, but it also increases compression strength as well. Additionally, cure speeds can be customized upon request, as CoolCure offers ‘cure-on-demand’ technology variations that can speed or slower the cure speed to meet end-user specific application needs.
This type of cement is ideal for large mass pours and can be implemented in existing cement mixing facilities and trucks.
Reducing the environment footprint of cement production and usage and meeting future emissions regulations is of paramount concern to all concrete producers. This is one new way that advances are helping to move the industry forward.
