General comments/chat, page-35871

My opinion on concrete additive.
We have been told about two different potential uses:
1. Improving early strength, better curing properties.
2. Improving wet concrete rheology allowing concrete producers to substitute cheaper sand and gravel or use recycled building materials in place of part of sand and gravel (second is what Holcim do to produce their low carbon concrete).

In my opinion there is already many proven methods of achieving option 1 at reasonable cost so we can say there is very little demand for another one.

Option 2 has a little more potential but again there are already existing solutions so unless HRM would prove to offer significant cost advantage there will be very little interest.

Yes, we hear a lot about the need for "greener" or "lower carbon" concrete but in reality it doesn't look like there is actual demand or anyone willing to pay slight premium to use it. Both Boral and Holcim have such products on offer and if there was real demand we would hear about multitude of construction projects based on "lower carbon" concrete. Last time I have asked Holcim there was a 6% premium for their low carbon concrete.

There is also the elephant in the room when we talk about this idea that JM has partially touched on in his last webinar when he talked about the LOI.
Getting the HRM into the actual concrete mixing plants and into concrete mix in the correct amount.
Not only would the product need to be in a form that allows for accurate dosing and mixing (fine powder perhaps but definitely not filter cake), but someone would need to pay for design and installation of storage and dosing systems for HRM in hundreds of concrete mixing plants and run the distribution for the product.
The road from GWKP to concrete mixing plant is not so simple.

This is my opinion only and I would be interested in other opinions.