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How nanotechnology provides great solutions to road construction issues

What affects road construction quality the most?

With greater push on sustainability, road construction is becoming an affair that presents many opportunities for innovation and development. The problems are basically two-fold

  • Construction Quality Affected by moisture and other factors
  • Using resources efficiently and sustainably

Water, which is otherwise a boon, can be extremely harmful to pavements. It forces the asphalt binder to strip from the stone aggregate and leads to distresses such as cracking, potholes, ravelling etc. It also compromises the dimensional stability of the pavement by entering into soil bases and making the soil loose which can cause undulations.

Apart from this, incorrect construction practices and injudicious use of resources not just causes inconvenience to construction workers and commuters both, but also results in pavements that need constant rehabilitation which translates to wasted time, effort and money.

With awareness spreading about ruthless depletion of natural resources and the deteriorating environment around us, the need of the hour is to be innovative and come up with solutions that not just ensure sustainability by way of high quality and everlasting roads, but also ensure a nature friendly means of execution.

With economies growing increasingly aware of the use of sustainable road construction, energy saving and proper resource allocation is turning out to be a challenge.

What’s the solution?

The key is to come up with a solution that ensures conservation of natural resources, monetary resources and energy & power while also promising high quality and everlasting roads.

This is what Zydex offers.

By making use of nanotechnology, Zydex has come up with innovative chemical agents that help induce changes on a nano level, effectively changing the properties of the pavement construction material. This ensures higher strength and durability of pavements.

Zydex Road Solutions provides innovative Bitumen Additives that chemically enhance the bonds between the asphalt binder and the aggregate while also making the mix immune to water and the damages caused by it.

The warm mix asphalt solutions allows the contractor to reduce the temperature of the asphalt mix and work at lower temperatures while giving the same, or even better results than hot mix asphalt. This warm mix asphalt solution by Zydex not just helps in saving energy and fuel but also results in better working conditions.

The cold mix asphalt solutions for surface dressings and bond coats is profoundly dependable. The additives used to make this cold mix, enhances the bonds between the asphalt and the aggregate, thus creating a seamless bonding membrane between the pavement layers. It also reduces the amount of asphalt binder to be used. These additives also reduce wastage by eliminating the possibility of tire pick up.

Zydex also provides innovative soil stabilization and dust control solutions that make the soil bases impermeable to water and reduce the expansivity of the base, thus making it dimensionally stable. The nano acrylic co-polymer creates strong inter-particle bonds which when coupled with the water resistant nature of the base, means an immensely strong and self-strengthening base.

Zydex Road Solutions provides the following features:

  • Anti-Stripping: Reactive anti-stripping agent with world class performance.
  • Warm-Mix Anti-Stripping: Patented warm-mix technology for building green and long-lasting roads.
  • Prime Coat: Penetrative, reactive and waterproofed bond coat.
  • Tack Coat: Improved spray, reduced tire tack and quick-setting tack coat.
  • Soil Stabilization: Solutions for expansivity control and bonding of in-situ soil to replace stone bases and asphalt layers in road design.
  • Micro surfacing: Improved coating and strength.
  • Slurry Seal: Improved coating and better WTAT performance
  • Chip Seal (Surface Dressing): Improved strength and bonding to the base.
  • Waterproofing of soil bases: Water resistance with permeability reduced to 10-7 cm/sec.
  • Dust Control: 90% dust control in 1st spray with relief up to 98% in 2-3 sprays
  • Asphalt Emulsion Additives: Improved emulsification, reduced particle size and stronger bond strength.

These nanotechnology solutions provide a 360 degree mitigation and protection of roads. Sustainable construction and energy efficiency become easy to achieve with innovative tools like these!

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Biological farming solutions – An alternative to chemical fertilizers

Challenges in Agriculture:

  1. Declining soil health (Hard soils, Low organic matter & soil biological activity)
  2. Stagnating or declining yields
  3. Increasing cost of cultivation
  4. Air & water pollution (Chemical run off and volatilization of chemical inputs)
  5. Affordable (Can be even considered for Low-cost Mass housing)

Solution: Biological Farming

The solution is to rebuild our soils and natural soil biology with biofertilizers! Laboratory soil analysis reports often talk about deficiency of nutrients in the soil. However, it is important to note that only the plant available nutrients are accounted for in these reports. The vast abundance of plant unavailable nutrients is not quantified in these reports! Soils contain all the required plant nutrients in adequate quantities but in an unavailable form. An active soil biology is the key to unleash these nutrients and supply it to plants in an available form. Unfortunately, excessive use of chemical inputs suppresses this process and is the culprit in most cases.

Zydex’s biology booster technology (Zytonic/ Zytonic-M) also works as a soil conditioner that improves soil porosity and water holding capacity leading to a healthy and active root zone full of beneficial biology. These bacteria, fungi, nematodes, protozoa and other beneficial organisms work throughout the crop cycle to convert unavailable plant nutrients to an available form for plant uptake. This allows a more sustainable form of farming with low chemical inputs and high quality & bountiful yields especially in drought-stricken conditions. Moreover, the active soil biology along with a larger root zone are continuously recycled back into the soil as organic matter to replenish the nutrients used up by the plants.

Farmer Benefits:

  • Increased yield (15-50%)
  • High produce quality: Size, Nutritional Content & Shelf Life
  • Reduction in irrigation (20-30%) and drought resistance
  • Reduction in chemical fertilizers (50-100%)
  • Reduction in pesticide consumption (20-40%)

Biological Farming can provide safe and wholesome food for all and is the best way forward for the future of Agriculture globally!

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Nanotechnology for waterproofing!

The Construction industry of India is an important indicator of the development as it creates investment opportunities across various related sectors. In India Construction has accounted for around 40 per cent of the development investment during the past 50 years. However, the growth rate in this industry has posed serious questions in terms of availability of quality raw material resulting into poor construction of buildings, bridges, etc.

With the increase in mega-size projects in major urban areas, the limiting resources used in construction industry, such as soil, cement, sand, bricks and aggregates (all containing silica) are depleting at an exponential rate.

Depletion speed of these resources necessitates innovative mitigating solutions that would ensure and enhance the useful service life of these limiting resources. One of the major threats to the structure is water ingress and the aesthetic and structural damage that it causes, which if prevented can significantly improve the life of all structures.

Water ingress in a structure initiates irreversible chemical changes leading to fungi / algae formation, efflorescence, carbonation, crack formation and rebar corrosion, thereby accelerating the ageing process.

CONVENTIONAL SOLUTION: Common waterproofing agents provide only a film cover on the surface, which is non-penetrative. Concrete pore size is < 100 nm (nanometers). Molecule Size of other waterproofing technologies is above 100 nm, hence they cannot enter & seal the concrete substrate micro and nano pores.

ZYCOSIL+ PENETRATIVE & REACTIVE WATERPROOFING TECHNOLOGY

This New Generation Organosilane is a technological breakthrough in waterproofing membrane solutions. The salient features of this new formulation are:

  • Long Useful Service Life (UV stability upto 20 years)
  • Water Dilutable – 20 times its volume (cutting transportation cost)
  • Easy to Apply (colloquially speaking, is Idiot-proofed, eliminating misapplication)
  • Eco-friendly (Meets the toughest Californian VOC norms)
  • Affordable (Can be even considered for Low-cost Mass housing)

ZYCOSIL+ is a reactive organosilane technology, with a molecular size of 4-6 nm. ZYCOSIL + upon contact reacts with the siliceous substrate reacts chemically with the substrate and permanently changes its properties from a water loving (hydrophilic) to water resisting (hydrophobic) substrate.

The treatment results in a permanent polarity change of the surface changing its nature from hydrophilic to hydrophobic.

 

This makes the structure permanently water resistant, resulting prevention of water ingress and the damages caused by it and significant extension of the service life of the structure. These waterproofing chemicals can also be applied at the foundation base of soil, before pouring of PCC, to give additional stability against settlement.

One may wonder that application of this technology is really expensive and extremely difficult to apply, but in fact, this is absolutely reverse. This technology is easy on pocket (cost of application per sq. ft. is extremely competitive) and most importantly it is very easy to apply on both – horizontal and vertical surfaces, easing the job of the applicators.

ZYCOSIL+ is a unique technology platform which has ease of application, cost effective and is an unparalleled penetrative waterproofing solution based on nano technology, which enters the micro cracks and seals them to make them completely waterproof.

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