Almost four years ago we developed a UHPC Desert cement binder to process desert sand into a concrete with very high strength values. Only cement binders, water and desert sand are necessary for this. For mixing a standard concrete mixer is needed. The focus of binder development two years ago was on the professional construction industry.In discussions with architects and organizations operating in Africa we were asked, if we could develop a simple, not so high-quality version of this binder that can support the traditional simple
constructions of the rural population. After some
discussion, a list of requirements for this new
binder was created with which we now work in
our lab. UHPC binders were originally developed
with the aim of achieving an extremely high level
of strength. Then we discovered with our UHPC
binder the incredible combination possibilitieswith a variety of natural materials.
Our UHPC binders can perfectly support or
replace wood, straw, loam and clay constructions in terms of their strength and resistance to high
UHPC can also be easily combined with recycled material. It can be made of furniture and sanitary equipment. UHPC concrete is not flammable, which contributes to the safety of the accommodation.
The aim of our current binder development is to
drastically reduce binder costs, to keep the
mixing procedure as simple as possible, to
drastically reduce the proportion of binder in the
overall mix, to reduce possible material transports,
to enable new material combinations with local
raw materials and to preserve as many
properties of UHPC as possible, temperatures and high solar radiation. UHPC binders are completely waterproof, even in very thin layers, do not rot and provide safe protection against termites.There is also the possibility to use local cement for the production of UHPC Desert Sand Binder in addition to the local desert sand. For this we would have to test local cements for their suitability for our UHPC binder.
I work as an architect in South Africa and have read the publications of your desert sand binders with great interest. Due to the ever more extreme betting conditions this UHPC Binder could offer a solution for some problems. Can the binder only handle special desert sands or is it possible to work with desert sands from all deserts of the world? If you produce the binder in Europe, it will be very expensive for Africa due to sea transport, how do you want to solve this problem?
ReplyDeleteOriginally the desert sand binder was developed by us in response to the worldwide sand problem. It should no longer be necessary to use exclusively coastal sand or river sand as building sand. Desert sand is available in indescribable quantities worldwide. We tested some desert sands but not all. It is unbelievable but it is extremely difficult to get samples of desert sands. Most countries do not allow sand to be exported. So far, the tests of the desert nos from Africa and the USA, which have been available to us, have shown that it can be used without problems as a building sand in connection with our UHPC binder. At the moment we are producing this binder in Germany. Production in the USA and in a North African state is planned this year. We are planning further production facilities worldwide for the future, but we still need investors for this.
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