At the Nizhny Novgorod State Architecture and Construction University researchers have developed an economically effective technology to make additives to cement mixes from wood-chemical production wastes.

They conducted tests with 20 substances, obtained from wastes and co-products of the wood-chemistry industry, and they prepared them in advance for interaction with cement, saponifying them with alkaline, heating and mixing. Then they mixed them with Portland cement and sand and the resulting new concrete building mixes were tested for quality. The developers state that there are wood-chemistry wastes that are wonderful plasticizers for cement solutions and which are at the same level with today’s most effective industrial additives. It is most likely that wood-chemistry waste will no longer rot (or be burned) at the tip; it will find interesting application, such as the possible replacement of wood resin (usually necessary in the production of concrete plasticizer), which is expensive and in short supply, especially in a mixture with softwood tall oil. Clearly, the cost of such a plasticizer would be several times lower.