Fizz, nice find! I especially like the parts with CTO Mike Riley, a new quick setting concrete and a "green" investment to boot. But a competitive price seems to be a problem at this point.
With concrete prices rising across the nation, Hyman figures a company like his will have to deliver product in the $50 to $90 range to be competitive, especially in the price-sensitive, high volume ready-mixed and pre-cast sectors. He’s confident that CeraTech will be able to compete in these segments soon.
“We’ll be there in the short term,” he says. “When we get there, with our mechanical properties, the game’s over. It’s just a matter of time before we can get our price down to that price point.”
Up to now, CeraTech has focused on the repair market, one of the smaller sectors of the industry. Their unique line of environmentally friendly, all-weather, rapid setting, cementious structural repair mortar and concrete products has gained them a solid foothold, particularly in the rapid-repair corner of the business. But Hyman and company principals David Settl (CFO) and Mike Riley (chief technology officer) want more. They want to bring their existing formulation and a new, even more promising formula to the much larger and more competitive sectors.
Basically, CeraTech has developed a new technology for making cement. The proprietary formulation that launched the company’s product line is a single component powder that is water activated. Simply mix it in a bucket with water and pour out cement or concrete. The end result is a cementious material with qualities that meet or exceed the qualities of more conventional cement. The rapid setting, rapid strength-gaining characteristics of CeraTech’s “Pavemend” line of products make them an ideal material for a large range of projects including quick repair of bridges, roads, airport runways, warehouse and manufacturing facility floors, post-tension cables, parking garages and more. Within minutes, products in the Pavemend line harden, making it possible to drive on them, taxi aircraft over them or store heavy equipment atop them. Variations of the formulation in the Pavemend line and in other company mixtures extend working/setting times, allow for use on slopes or grades and vertical structures, can be reanimated without water for further manipulation and are available for use over huge temperature variations (from minus 10 degrees F to 120-plus degrees F) for both repair and structural construction.
In the main, CeraTech’s products set and dry more quickly than Portland cement products and don’t require mixers for continuous rotation and wetting until they are poured. What’s more they are green, making use of recyclable waste streams such as the coal byproduct, fly-ash, in far greater measure than their Portland cousins.
“The reason we think CeraTech has a promising future is that it has a new form of concrete that is better than existing concrete and recycles a product that has to be landfill now and we think it is a promising job creator for the city.”
Green Aspect
According to Dave Goss, the executive director of the American Coal Ash Association, the production of Portland cement accounts for between 4 percent and 8 percent of carbon-dioxide emissions globally. That makes the cement industry one of the largest single contributors of harmful greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
But the industry can and is making an effort to become greener by making use of industrial waste streams. Fly-ash in particular, a byproduct of coal burned in powerplants to produce electricity, offers great potential for helping to reduce CO2 emissions from cement production.
“If you’re manufacturing Portland cement to use in the production of concrete, you can use fly-ash and bottom ash as a substitute for the raw sand, shale or raw materials going into it,” Goss explains.
“If the Portland cement mix used to make concrete calls for say, 400 pounds of Portland cement, you can take 100 pounds of the Portland cement out and put 100 pounds of fly-ash in instead and get the same results in the concrete,” he says. “It’s easy to substitute anywhere from 20 to 40 percent Portland cement in concrete using fly-ash. If you don’t have to manufacture a portion of the Portland cement for your concrete mix design, then the cement kiln doesn’t release the CO2 generated during the production of Portland. We say that for each ton of fly-ash that you use in a concrete mix design instead of Portland cement, you’re eliminating that ton of CO2 released in its production. It’s a one ton to one ton ratio. That helps reduce greenhouse gases.”
An added benefit is that fly-ash is finer than the particles in regular Portland cement. Using it can make concrete mixtures less porous and more durable. In other words, using fly-ash makes for higher quality concrete.
“Concrete with fly-ash content typically lasts longer than concrete without it,” Goss says. “You improve the lifespan of projects and that adds to greening in that you may be able to avoid replacing the concrete you laid down for a longer period of time.”
