Volucon focuses  on developing volumetric mixers that are truly best in class and support the GCC and MENA construction communities in complying with the regions’ special requirements and concrete specifications (e.g. Saudi Aramco specifications and Dubai Municipality's green building rating system, “Al Safat”). These include, but are not limited to, the use of several supplementary cementitious blends with products such as GGBFS, fly ash, micro-silica and natural pozzolans.

Volucon has introduced a special dual cementitious bin volumetric mixer configuration that enables live blending of two cementitious materials with high accuracy offering the ultimate flexibility in concrete production while simultaneously producing concrete in one step.

Volucon's computer controlled dual bin mixers can be mounted on either chassis cab, trailer, ocean barge or railway car platforms and can mix blends of cementitious products precisely with superior accuracy as per the clients’ standards and specifications. These new Volucon mixers are a game changer in the region and unlock endless possibilities for the construction and industrial sectors in addition to saving on capex and opex budgets.

The development of energy and resource efficient low-carbon construction in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

One of the UAE's major goals is to develop and specify materials and processes that will help reducing its environmental footprint through resource and energy conservation, as well as renewable energy generation.

The production of one 1 tonne of Portland cement requires 1.5 tonnes of raw material. The production of Portland cement is highly energy intensive, consuming 4–7 MJ of fossil fuel energy per kg and releases approximately 1 tonne of carbon dioxide for manufacture of each tonne of Portland cement.

The production of cement contributes 5% of the global greenhouse gas emissions (Collins and Sanjayan, 2002). The use of slag (GGBFS), an industrial by-product which otherwise would contribute to land pollution, as a replacement for Portland cement in concrete will result in less energy for the manufacture of cement and reduce the green gas emissions due to concrete construction (Flower et al., 2005).

Slag-blended cement, a blend of ordinary Portland cement (OPC) and ground granulated blast furnace slag (“slag”) has had many years use worldwide in the construction industry. In recent years, many industrial waste by-products such as slag and fly ash are rapidly becoming the main source of supplementary cementitious materials (SCM) for use in concrete manufacture.

These SCMs are well known having a significant effect on reducing the concrete permeability, when properly cured, which is the main governing property for producing durable concrete (Mehta, 1984, Hooton, 2000) suitable for the Gulf environment where sever conditions prevail.

SCMs can also be used to reduce the heat generation associated with cement hydration and reduce the potential for thermal cracking in massive structural elements. The SCMs modify the microstructure of the concrete and reduce its permeability thereby reducing the penetration of water and waterborne salts into concrete thus enhancing the service life of the structure.

Research has demonstarted that slag concrete mixes significantly reduce the carbon footprint and meets the requirements of the UAE's municipalities. For example an economical mix with 80% ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) cement and 20% ordinary Portland cement (OPC) was nominated for use in the construction of Masdar City in Abu Dhabi with 154 kg/m3  carbon foot print. It is well known that the production of OPC produces a carbon foot print of about 1,000 kg/m3 (Malhotra and Mehta, 2008).

The inappropriate selection of cementitious materials and admixtures in mixture proportioning could have an either significant impact on cost and/or may not achieve the properties required for producing a durable concrete (i.e. high chloride resistance).

Producing sustainable concrete with a low carbon foot print is a laudable aim. One solution to reduce the high and unaccepted construction emissions is by replacing the cement in the concrete mix (Elchalakani and Elgaali, 2010).

Ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) is widely used to replace the cement to enhance the durability (Mehta, 1984, Hooton, 2000). The GGBFS is a by-product of the steel production process (thus it is a green material), therefore, it is used to enhance the durability and lower the carbon foot print. Thus except for the remaining small quantity of OPC used in the concrete mix, the concrete used in such project may be termed ‘sustainable concrete’.

The Gulf factor

Within such an environment, the high ambient temperature, low humidity, drying winds and dust blown salts all present great challenge to the construction of high quality concrete in the Gulf. Accordingly, special precautions need to be instituted under these extreme ambient conditions to enhance the design life and durability of concrete structures in service.

One approach to deal with such conditions is to use high volume GGBFS concrete to increase the setting times which is beneficial for the hot climate. The GGBFS cement particles are finer (>450 m2/kg) than the OPC ones (<350 m2/kg). This would reduce the amount and rate of bleeding of these concretes. The reduction in bleeding together with the increase in setting times of concrete can increase the risk of plastic shrinkage cracking and may warrant special precautions during placing and finishing operations. Plastic shrinkage usually occurs within 10–12 h after placement only when concrete is exposed to unsaturated air (RH < 95%) in the presence of high speed wind and hot temperature (Collepardi, 2006, ACI Manual, 2005).