Month: March 2018

World of Concrete 2018 logged just over 58,000 registered attendees from the concrete and masonry business, plus 1,567 exhibitors—302 of them new this year—promoting equipment, products, materials and services across nearly 750,000 square feet of Las Vegas Convention Center indoor and outdoor space.

Researchers at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., aim to move testing of a cellulose nanocrystal admixture from campus laboratories to a California concrete construction site this year. Derived from the world’s most common polymer, the nanocrystals strengthen concrete through a chemical reaction increasing cement particle hydration. They provide what Civil Engineering Professor Pablo Zavattieri characterizes as a rail or avenue for water to go where it is needed in the concrete matrix, especially unhydrated particles.

BASF AG and CRH Plc are among 30 companies joining the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s Factor10. The initiative seeks to advance principles of the circular economy, where the “take-make-dispose” economic model yields to one that is regenerative by design. Charter companies span 16 major sectors and report combined annual sales of $1.3 trillion.

Lehigh Hanson parent company HeidelbergCement AG is selling its 51 percent stake in Lehigh White Cement Co. to minority shareholders in a deal valued at about $140 million and scheduled for closing this quarter. Ownership of Lehigh White Cement, which has 280,000 tons capacity in York, Pa., and Waco, Texas, plants, will be split between Aalborg Cement Co. (63.25 percent), a North American business of Denmark-based Aalborg Portland Holding A/S, and Cemex Inc. (36.75 percent).