Two new innovative admixture product ranges have been unveiled by BASF’s Construction Chemicals Business Unit at the Concrete 07 Conference and Exhibition in Adelaide.

The two ranges – sureTEC (Super Retention Technology) and Glenium ® 8008 UHS (Ultra High Strength) – are set to revolutionise concrete construction and are formulated to meet the ever increasing demands for improved efficiency and durability – in terms of overall construction process and finished concrete structure.

“Innovation is the essence of business success. We cannot sustain our leadership in construction chemicals industry without innovative products and solutions that enable our customers to meet the needs of global megatrends towards sustainable construction,” Boris Gorella, group vice president and head of BASF’s Construction Chemicals Business Unit, Asia Pacific, said.

As well as representing the culmination of several years of research and development, these new products BASF has launched represent a significant step forward in both product technology and sustainable construction.

“BASF Construction Chemicals aims to generate more business in Asia Pacific to double its global sales by 2015. One way to achieve this goal is to leverage our state-of-the-art research and development capabilities to create better products and solutions like the one we are presenting today.” Dr Gorella said.

Leo van den Heuvel, regional director, BASF’s Construction Chemicals Business Unit, Pacific, said, “Sustainability is a primary consideration in Australia – particularly in terms of the built environment. This has resulted in a significant increase in demand for products and technologies that help to minimise the overall environmental footprint and maximise the durability of buildings and structures.

“With that in mind, we believe that innovative solutions such as sureTEC and the Glenium ® 8008 can play a significant role in assisting our customers to meet their sustainability targets by improving workability of their construction operations, and energy efficiency and durability of the finished structures.”

sureTEC, which stands for Super Retention Technology, is an evolutionary milestone in admixture innovation. It was developed with the idea of sustainability and allows a new benchmark in concrete workability; enabling concrete producers to gain control over workability between the batching plant and the placement site for two hours or more – far beyond previously known levels.

Concrete producers are consistently able to provide specified workability of concrete, even in hot weather. External factors affecting placement of concrete such as traffic conditions and site access become irrelevant.

It comes as a standalone admixture or an in-product additive with selected BASF admixtures. sureTEC can be used with mixes of all workability levels and provides outstanding quality control and consistency across concrete batches.

Importantly, sureTEC technology does not extend setting time or delay strength development of the concrete.

Glenium ® 8008 Ultra High Strength (UHS) concrete admixtures have also being launched. It utilises the latest in high performance polymer technology, with a unique formulation which delivers concrete mixes with final strengths of over 100MPa.

UHS concrete is seen as critical in urban and inner-city areas where ground space is scarce and expensive. UHS concrete can assist designers and architects to enlarge room space and maximise the usable floor area by designing structures with smaller and fewer columns, as well as wider spans.

A new benchmark has been set with Glenium ® 8008. It incorporates the latest generation polycarboxylate technology, and addresses a number of issues and challenges traditionally associated with the manufacture of UHS concrete, particularly in terms of setting times. The low dosage required – even when the proportion of water to binder is at 20% or less - minimises their impact on setting times.