Conducrete

About Conducrete

Conducrete is a premium conductive cementitious and carbonaceous material that dramatically reduces impedance and enhances the performance, reliability and longevity of earthing/grounding systems. This results in superior electrical and lightning protection for your assets.

Conducrete® is provided in powder form and is available in 25kg bags (in line with manual handling requirements). It is easy to install dry directly from the bag, or mixed with water in a slurry format and pumped into the trench or hole.

 

Conducrete® adds substantial protection to any system where low impedance earthing/grounding is required and it has been successfully utilized to enhance and protect earthing/grounding systems across many industries including the following: Electrical Utilities, Telecommunications, Broadcasting, Wind Farms, Mining, Oil and Gas, Industrial and Manufacturing, Municipal and Institutional and Military.

 

Summary of Conducrete®'s key features and benefits

 

1. Protects earthing/grounding systems from theft and sabotage
2. Environmentally neutral
3. Significantly extends the life of earthing/grounding systems
4. Dramatically enhances the performance of earthing/grounding systems for superior electrical and lightning protection for your assets
5. Excellent overall value
6. The knowledge that your site shares the same standard as an array of prestigious structures around the world.

 

Theft Resistant and maintenance free

• Conducrete® protects the underlying earthing/grounding system from theft and sabotage. Theft is increasingly becoming a pervasive problem world wide, which substantially increases the costs from the loss of material and outages. Because Conducrete® solidifies into a high strength conductive concrete, the likelihood of such issues is substantially reduced.
• Conducrete® electrodes are maintenance-free over their functional lifetime. There are no hydration or salt replacement requirements with Conducrete®.

 

Environmentally neutral/pH neutral

• Conducrete® has no negative impact on the environment. In fact, it has been approved for use by regulatory agencies in many environmentally sensitive areas where aquifer cross-contamination is a concern.
• Conducrete® is water impermeable and pH neutral when set up and will not corrode copper conductors.
• No salts will leach into, or contaminate, the soil. Leachate testing shows that Conducrete® has levels far below acceptable leachate limits.

 

Long life expectancy

• Independent testing indicates that Conducrete® can reduce electrolytic corrosion. The photos below show two copper samples, one bare copper and the other embedded in Conducrete®. The Conducrete® reduced the amount of electrolytic corrosion by 86%.
• Conducrete® can extend the life of earthing/grounding systems by a factor of 10. Electrodes protected by Conducrete® will last in excess of 25 years in many cases.

 

Compressive strength and low shrinkage

• Conducrete® has a compressive strength of 21MPa (3045 psi) after 28 days. This means that Conducrete® electrodes are permanent, will not wash away and will withstand heavy earth/ground fault currents.
• Conducrete® testing yields shrinkage of 0.015% at 28 days. This means that Conducrete® bonds or knits to the surrounding soil resulting in a superior electrode due to the constant contact with the surrounding soil.

 

High voltage/current test results

In independent testing in a high voltage lab precast Conducrete® electrodes withstood 1682V/688 amp fault for a duration of 500ms. Other earthing/grounding enhancement materials of lower compressive strength have exploded under these test conditions which would render the protection system useless. Conducrete® is the only earthing/grounding backfill that has documented evidence of high fault current withstand.

 

Water absorption

Conducrete® is a very hygroscopic material. Lab testing shows that Conducrete® will absorb up to 34% of its weight in water. This quality is especially important in arid environments. Conducrete® is constantly hydrating and therefore continuously absorbing any available moisture from the surrounding soil. The result is an electrode that delivers more stable resistance to ground over time even during dry conditions.

 

Superior operating performance (low impedance, lower resistance, superior conductivity and capacitance)

Low impedance: the ability to provide low impedance is critical to dissipate lightning energy quickly in order to protect assets from damage. Conducrete®'s low impedance is due to the low resistance, high capacitance and low inductance of the unique blend of materials.

 

Lower resistance and superior conductivity:

• Lower resistance results in superior conductivity
• Independent lab testing indicates that Conducrete® has a very low resistivity (3.06 ohm-cm)
• Figure 1 illustrates that Conducrete® has a resistivity of less than half of another leading brand of earth/ground enhancing material and approximately 50 times lower than bentonite clay.

 

 

Increased capacitance: the conductive and insulating materials used in the formulation of Conducrete® gives it a capacitive nature. Conducrete® has the ability to store and release energy the same way that a capacitor will store energy until it is earthed/grounded or allowed to release the energy into a circuit. The material quickly absorbs high rise time electrical surges keeping earth/ground potential rise in check and preventing equipment interruption and infrastructure damage.

 

Technical specifications

Conductive concrete must be environmentally neutral. It must
be set up in situ to form a solid and must not leach, dissolve or migrate into the soil or water. May be installed dry or mixed with water to form a slurry for horizontal or vertical applications. The material must be maintenance free and not require recharging of any kind i.e. watering, chemicals or salts. The material must have a dry resistivity of less than ohm-cm and an ability to reduce corrosion by at least 80%. The complete technical specifications are contained in the tables below.

 

Summary of Conducrete® features and benefits

 

Physical state	Powder
Appearance	Dark grey
Odour	None
Dry density	~1400kg/m³ (hardened state)
Wet density	0.015% at 28 days
Shrinkage
Compressive strength	28 days 21 MPa
Permeability to water	3.8X 10-7 cm/sec
Hygroscopic property (water absorption)	32.4%
Resistivity (ASTM G187-05)	3.06 to 6.38 ohm-cm
Electrolyric corrosion resistance	Reduction in corrosion of 86%
High fault current test withstand	1686V for 500ms
Environmental impact / pH in situ	Neutral

 

Leachate data (TCPL Procedure) based on Regulation 558 performed by Accuracy Environmental Laboratories Ltd. demonstrates that Conducrete® is environmentally neutral. All results are expressed as ppm unless otherwise state '<' denotes less than method detection limit (MDL)

 

ICAP	Conducrete®	Acceptable limit
Arsenic	<0.05	2.5
Barium	0.850	100.0
Boron	0.005	500.0
Cadmium	<0.005	0.5
Chromium	<0.005	5.0
Lead	<0.02	5.0
Mercury	<0.01	0.1
Selenium	<0.1	1.0
Silver	<0.005	5.0
Uranium	<0.2	10.0
Parameter	Conducrete®	Acceptable Limit
Fluoride	0.126	150
Nitrate (NO3-N)	<0.100	1000 (Nitrate + Nitrate)
Nitrate (NO2-N)	<0.100	1000 (Nitrate + Nitrate)
Cyanide	<0.005	20