Concrete

Concrete is a durable material with a long lifetime expectancy. There are concrete buildings remaining from as far back as the Roman period. Furthermore - Concrete is like the forest, it binds carbon dioxide throughout its life - up to half of the carbon dioxide emitted by the cement production.

Concrete is, after petroleum, the second largest product handled in the world. The use of alternative binders in concrete such as GGBFS, improves its environmental friendliness as well as making it more cost effective.

A general comparison of a concrete containing GGBFS versus concrete with solely Portland cement has the following differences:

The use of GGBFS, as a hydraulic binder, enables reduced Portland Cement content, significantly affecting the CO₂ footprint.
GGBFS increase the pumpability of the concrete. It also reduces heat development and risk of cracks.
Concrete containing GGBFS shows resistance to various chemical reactions and making a lighter concrete.

Equivalent Performance of Combinations Concept (EPCC)

The principle of EPCC is by laboratory testing ensuring that by Swecem predefined binder materials, such as our GGBFS with different cements, meet the requirements of the selected binder combinations in accordance with the Swedish Standard SS137003: 2015 Appendix O. This gives a k-value of equal to 1 for the tested binder combinations. The customer may thus replace the cement with GGBFS depending on which exposure class reqiured.

Swecem hands out a “Declaration of EPCC”-certificate to our customers for the tested binder combinations.