Even if a new technology is urgently required on the market, potential customers have to be convinced of its effectiveness first. Recently in Poland, a bold pioneer, independent experts and an industry conference confirmed that MasterSeal 7000 CR – the innovative, reliable and highly efficient concrete-waterproofing and protection system from Master Builders Solutions – truly delivers on its promise.
As strange as it may at first sound: Our environmental awareness takes its toll on wastewater-treatment facilities: When water consumption is reduced, the result is a higher concentration of contaminants, which, in turn, significantly accelerates concrete corrosion in wastewater-treatment facilities – in the various types of collection basins and tanks for example. For the operators of such facilities, this boils down to either taking great care to protect concrete structures reliably, or regularly repairing or replacing them. As a consequence, new and effective solutions for protecting the concrete in such facilities became highly sought-after, but often remained elusive: Many construction-chemicals manufacturers claimed they had developed just the product required – all too often, though, their products fell short of their claims.
Based on that experience, wastewater-facility operators initially retained their skepticism when Master Builders Solutions launched a new product developed especially for this type of application. Aquanet, a water supplier and operator of wastewater-treatment facilities in Poland, took the plunge, as it were, and gave the new solution a chance to prove itself. And it did so with flying colors: Some one-and-a-half years later, even the first minimal signs of a diminished protective effect have yet to appear. And Aquanet was prepared to let its industry colleagues share in that breakthrough – a breakthrough that had been confirmed by the independent experts of Poznan Technical University.
The opportunity presented itself when Seidel-Przywecki, publisher of the ‘Forum Eksploatatora’ journal for the wastewater-treatment sector, took up the problem, highlighting its ubiquity and urgency, and invited industry representatives to take part in a two-day conference on “The Refurbishment of Tanks in Wastewater-Treatment Facilities”. That event – organized under the patronage of Professor Józef Jasiczak of Poznan’s Technical University, with Aquanet as cooperation partner, and with Master Builders Solutions as sponsor – took place in Poznan at the end of March. The conference was received enthusiastically across the sector, with nearly 50 industry professionals, all of them decision-makers with various operators of wastewater-treatment facilities, announcing their participation.
At the conference, the agenda followed a trajectory from the general to the concrete: First, representatives from independent research institutes detailed the maintenance challenges of wastewater-treatment facilities. And the subsequent reports from participants quickly confirmed the persistent, urgent demand for new, effective technologies. Expectations where high, therefore, when Master Builders Solutions took center stage to present its concrete-protection and waterproofing solution.
“Our new high-performance coating is based on our innovative XolutecTM technology and combines properties that, until now, were all but mutually exclusive”, says Albert Berenguel, Business and Marketing Manager Europe. “Throughout the development process, our clear focus was on customer benefit: Wastewater-treatment facilities have to prioritize uninterrupted service. When maintenance work is required, this should happen as a planned operation, not as a reaction to an emergency. Additional key requirements included very short downtimes and a reliable, durable protective effect.”
Combining resistance to chemical and mechanical impact in wastewater systems with effective crack-bridging properties, MasterSeal 7000 CR reduces the risk of unexpected interruption-of-service and significantly extends maintenance cycles. Ease of application, insensitivity to moisture, and rapid hardening even at low temperatures speed up application and significantly shorten downtimes.
The long-term protective effect of MasterSeal 7000 CR has also been confirmed by independent assessment carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute for Environmental, Safety, and Energy Technology: In a specially set-up test environment, the institute simulated the typical adverse conditions in a sewage system over a five-year period. Their findings: The aggressive environment has no impact on the protective properties of MasterSeal 7000 CR.