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THE SELF-HARDENING SLURRY STORY

A simple idea that works for patient people. It may even work for less patient people.

For those of you familiar with cement-bentonite slurry (CB), IMPERMIX® is similar but properties are quite different thanks to different types of clay and cement. For those who are only familiar with neat cement grout at water-cement ratios between .4 and 1.5, at a ratio above 1, cement starts settling and the grout is not stable. When we desire stable grouts with water cement ratio of 4 to 10 it is clear that neat cement needs some help to stay afloat: a clay, often a bentonite, acts as a pseudo-plastic viscosifier that produces sufficient gel to maintain cement particles in suspension until the slurry eventually sets. This is cement bentonite slurry that produces a fairly impervious and low strength material.

Highlights:

• Mixing water can be almost any aqueous medium and to date all contaminants are compatible.

• A E-10 cm/sec range permeability coefficient is possible: 1,000 times better than CB!

• Coefficient of Molecular Diffusion can be 10 to 50 times lower than landfill clay liners and soil bentonite cutoff walls.

• Deep Soil Mixing or Jet Grouting with IMPERMIX® will meet regulatory requirements for containment barriers.

• IMPERMIX® is easy to mix and requires only one mixer as all ingredients go in at once.

• 50 to 300 psi ultimate unconfined compressive strength, depending on formulation.

Do you know why roman structures are still standing today after more than 2,000 years? Have you seen many concrete structures older than 75 years in good shape? A good thing romans had only pozzolans and lime to work with - Portland cement would wait for the Modern Times to be invented. The cement in IMPERMIX® is a pozzolan not Portland cement. It is actually used to improve Portland concrete.

IMPERMIX® is a very versatile material in geotechnical construction. Applications have developed over the years as part of our continuous service to the construction industry. Invented to overcome the limitations of cement-bentonite in passing performance criteria imposed for containment of hazardous waste by regulatory agencies, IMPERMIX® quickly became an ideal one-phase barrier construction method. As a fluid stable slurry grout, sealing bedding under leaky sewers carrying hazardous liquids and eventually filling sewers to be abandoned became new applications. Other HAZMAT situations have created other avenues.

From an Environmental Protection standpoint, we cannot be GREENER™, IMPERMIX® is actually GREEN!

IMPERMIX® slow set and strength characteristics have led to performing systems for support of excavations which in fact marry traditional shoring systems and self-hardening slurry technology.