The latest entrant in the family of blended cement is composite cement, which is manufactured by blending ground clinker with slag and fly ash. However, the product is yet to see the light of day.
The National Council for Cement and Building Materials (NCB) organised a one-day Symposium on ‘Composite Cement for Resource Conservation, Environmental Protection & Enhanced Sustainability’ on 30th September 2016 at its Ballabgarh Unit. The objective of organising the symposium was to give emphasis on manufacturing and use of composite cement in India. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has formulated a new standard for composite cement, IS 16415:2015, permitting simultaneous use of fly ash and granulated blast furnace slag as mineral additives for its manufacture. The specifications have been formulated based on the investigations carried out at NCB.
The symposium was inaugurated formally by the lighting of a lamp by Ashwani Pahuja, Director General, NCB. The day-long symposium witnessed technical presentations of research activities on composite cement and deliberations of the issues in three technical sessions under the themes of ‘Composite Cement- Specifications and Quality’, ‘Composite Cement – Chemistry and Performance’ and ‘Composite Cement – Energy, Environment and Sustainability’. A total of 17 technical papers were presented by various eminent authors.
In his inaugural speech, Pahuja emphasised the importance and benefit of composite cement, particularly in the Indian context. He appraised that NCB had carried out detailed investigations on preparation of composite cement using indigenous raw materials and evaluation of its properties as per Indian standard test procedures.
Jayaraman, an eminent cement technocrat, delivered an experienced and valuable speech on the subject. He said, ‘Any attempt to bring down clinker consumption is an important and urgent necessity, as our reserves such as limestone are limited and the present reserve of around 80 to 90 thousand million tonnes will last for another 40 years. Therefore, composite cement is not an option, it is a compulsion.’
Subroto Chowdhury, Co-chairman of the Technical Session on ‘Composite Cement- Specifications and Quality’ said in his remarks, ‘The first requirement for composite cement is the preparedness from the industry as the required engineering adequacy is already existing.’
SS Jain emphasised on educating people regarding composite cement considering conservation of resources and protection of the environment.
SA Khadilkar, helped the participants to understand in what way composite cement is different and why it is better as compared to PPC & PSC in terms of its durability, performance in concrete and in many other aspects.
The others who spoke on the occasion were Daniel Strohmeyer, Loesche, Germany, Dr K C Narang, Chairman, Technical Session.
(For further information, contact Dr SK Breja at: ncb.skb@gmail.com