CemteQ is committed to developing, manufacturing and
distributing value-adding,
sustainable cementitious products, systems and solutions that are lightweight
and offer significant thermal insulation, fire-resistance and acoustic
advantages over conventional building materials.
Sister company, Sun Silicates, produces high-quality
exfoliated perlite which is used by CemteQ as an aggregate replacement in
composite cementitious formulations to produce unique and bespoke lightweight,
insulating solutions for the building industry.
Perlite has been widely
used in cementitious blends for lightweight, insulating floors since the 1940s
in the northern hemisphere. It is a naturally occurring, amorphous volcanic
glass formed by the rapid cooling and solidification of
volcanic lava which traps crystalline water into its mass.
The
highest quality raw perlite is imported and is heat processed using
state-of-the-art technology. When suddenly heated to above 870°C, the siliceous
perlite particles expand to between four and twenty times their original volume
as the combined water in the raw rock vaporizes and creates countless tiny
bubbles in the glassy material. This results in a snow-white material with
excellent thermal insulation properties, exceptional lightweight and fireproof
characteristics and a very low carbon footprint.
When it
comes to insulating lightweight flooring, CemteQ offers a number of solutions. CemteQ’s ScreedLiteis perlite-based composite
screed that is commonly used in under-tile
heating applications to prevent downward heat loss, thereby saving significantly
on energy costs. It offers approximately seven times the
insulation properties with 25% of the weight of conventional screed materials. It comprises a special blend of high-quality cement
and perlite aggregate. It is also used extensively for levelling suspended
slabs due to its significant weight saving as well as on roof decks to provide
a slope to fall. Standing water on a roof deck is destructive to roofing
membranes and often results in leaks. Once placed, ScreedLite can be screeded
to the required thickness and sloped towards drainage points or the roof edge.
Together with cement and designer admixtures,
CemteQ also uses recycled polystyrene for its significant lightweight, acoustic
and thermal properties. In this way, the company is able to incorporate a waste
material, that would otherwise end up in landfills, into the building process.
CemteQ has recently introduced a new
preblended and bagged lightweight concrete blend which comprises the highest
grade recycled polystyrene aggregate blended with the correct ratio of cement
and admixtures. Branded EnviroteQ, the composite product is specially
formulated to be mixed with water and pumped on site with no yield loss for
lightweight screeds and concrete. Used in a wide range of applications,
EnviroteQ is a cost-effective solution for floors and roof slabs thicker than
50mm. The product is supplied in 100 litre bags with 10 bags yielding 1 m3
of concrete with a cured density of 600 kg.
According
to Managing Director, Victor Bouguenon, “This new development complements our
existing range. Our perlite-cement composites are relatively fragile and
therefore not suited to vigorous mixing and pumping and are ideally suited to
screed thicknesses up to 50 mm. EnviroteQ does not lose yield in the mixing and
pumping process and is ideally suited to thicknesses from 50 mm upwards.
Using a combination of a thick
lightweight EnviroteQ polystyrene-based screed combined with a thinner
perlite-based ScreedLite screed, high thermal resistance values can be
economically and relatively simply achieved. For reroofing and reflooring
applications, this combination provides permanent, cost-effective,
slope-to-drain designs with high R-values over flat and often irregular
substrates.
More
information from CemteQ
Building Solutions, Tel: +27(0)11 824 4600 / email: [email protected] / www.cemteq.com
