AquaSmart™ CS Product Technology

Absorption Demonstration

This video is a simple demonstration of AquaSmart’s™ unique water absorption capabilities. Using 30g of coated sand absorbing 300g of water, AquaSmart’s™ coated sand technology allows you to absorb, store, and slowly release the amount of water desired for your application. AquaSmart’s™ coated sand rapidly absorbs water, making it incredibly useful in concrete, transporting proppant in oil & gas, and soil moisture management to name a few.

“AquaSmart™ Technologies offer a new product that allows Portland cement to hydrate more thoroughly, which provides benefit to many concrete properties. Ultimately, it improves the efficiency of the cement which makes construction more sustainable.” —Dr. Matthew D’Ambrosia, P.E.

How AquaSmart™ CS works

Included in our portfolio of concrete technologies is AquaSmart’s™ signature CS (Coated Sand) product that can be adjusted to take advantage of its high affinity for water, offering the volume, rate and timing of water absorption and desorption to suit a specific application. Only a small portion (less than 10%) of the fine aggregate needs to be replaced with AquaSmart CS™ to realize all the benefits of this product.

CTL Labs showing AquaSmart CS™ having an absorption higher than 150% in a pore solution.

Absorption of dry AquaSmart™ immersed in pore solution
Absorption of Dry AquaSmart™ – Swelling in Pore Solution
5 grams of AquaSmart™ CS was submerged into pore solution to evaluate absorption rate (see graph)

Concrete is the trusted foundation of nearly every substantial project around the world. Technically a mixture of cementitious materials, sand, aggregates, and water, it can be enhanced with materials that improve the rheological properties of fresh concrete and the mechanical properties of hardened concrete. Of those, the AquaSmart CS™ technology has emerged as a genuine game-changer based on its ability to:

  • Enhance service life
  • Enhance cement hydration
  • Reduce or eliminate short-term cracking
  • Promote internal curing
  • Improve cohesion
  • Improve workability
  • Reduce concrete variability from batch to batch

A technical advisory panel, composed of respected engineers from across the industry, has been closely engaged in the development and evaluation of AquaSmart CS™ to ensure it delivers on the technology’s remarkable potential.

AquaSmart™ CS has undergone intensive laboratory evaluation with a battery of tests including strength, slump, length change, rapid chloride resistivity, set time, freeze-thaw resistance, etc. The potential of our technology can be summed up by the reaction of a prominent concrete chemist/mix designer who saw the material added to a concrete mix and exclaimed, “Incredible … never seen an admixture like it!”

AquaSmart™ CS Significantly Reducing Autogenious Shrinkage

Dale Bentz at NIST used 3.5 lbs of AquaSmart™ per 100 lbs of cement in this mortar testing looking at autogenous shrinkage. The control had a w/c of 0.42 and AquaSmart™ had a total w/c of 0.49 with similar flowability.

AquaSmart™ Autogenous Deformation

CTL Labs Test Length Change for High Performance Bridge Decks

Standard High-Performance Bridge Deck
Standard High-Performance Bridge Deck with SRA
48 lbs AquaSmart™ per cu/yd with SRA
96 lbs AquaSmart™ per cu/yd

Interested in distributing or licensing any of our technologies?

The chemical bonding strength of our technology is rivaled only by the tight, trust-based bonds we form with our business partners and our innovative culture with 25-plus different patents in seven years. Let’s talk.