Scientists Create New Salt-Resistant Concrete

File photo: A truck spreads salt on a road in Sterrebeek February 10, 2010. (REUTERS/Sebastien Pirlet)
File photo: A truck spreads salt on a road in Sterrebeek February 10, 2010. (REUTERS/Sebastien Pirlet)
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Scientists Create New Salt-Resistant Concrete

File photo: A truck spreads salt on a road in Sterrebeek February 10, 2010. (REUTERS/Sebastien Pirlet)
File photo: A truck spreads salt on a road in Sterrebeek February 10, 2010. (REUTERS/Sebastien Pirlet)

Researchers at the Brunel University London have created a mix that can be added to concrete to protect it from the harms of the salt sprinkled on streets and pavements during the winter in Europe and many other countries.

Every year, specializing cars spread the salt, known as sodium chloride, in vast quantities on roads and pavements to stop them freezing. Water usually freezes at 0C, but when salt is added, the freezing temperature drops below this level, and the salt prevents water particles from creating solid ice crystals.

Most of this salt is ultimately washed away, but large quantities are absorbed as salty water, which causes the concrete to deteriorate and steel within to rust and corrode.

In the study recently published in the JOM journal, the researcher team led by the Jordanian Mazen Al-Kheetan, from the Brunel's department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, announced it has devised a new concrete mix -mainly composed of sodium acetate compound- that absorbs 64% less water and 90% less salt than normal concrete. It's hoped the new mix could lead to pavements that are best placed to withstand their annual dousing of salt.

"Incorporation of a sodium acetate compound into concrete, at the mixing stage, works on absorbing some of the water to form crystals that line the walls of the pores in the concrete. These crystals increase the hydrophobicity of the concrete (the amount concrete repels the water), which ensures the reduction of water uptake through the pores. Also, when applying de-icing salt to pavements made from this concrete mix, the presence of the protective compound within the pores work on fending off the water and the waterborne chlorides," Al-Kheetan told Asharq Al-Awsat via email.

"During our three-year study, we added different quantities of the sodium acetate compound to different concrete mixes, until we achieved the perfect mix providing these benefits," he added.

According to Kheetan, the new concrete mix still needs more long term tests in cold and warm weathers, before it becomes available for the industrial use, noting that "we still need two to three years of experiments before we can use the new mix on the roads."

Speaking about the possibility of using this concrete mix in regions other than Europe, Dr. Moujib Rahman, co-author of the study, told Asharq Al-Awsat: "This concrete can be used in the making of bridges, pavements, highways, houses, ports, and infrastructures or any surface that usually sees heavy rainfalls or salt precipitations."



Olympic Balloon to Rise again in Paris

The iconic symbol of the 2024 Paris Olympic will take to the skies during France's annual street music festival, the Fete de la Musique. Thomas SAMSON / AFP
The iconic symbol of the 2024 Paris Olympic will take to the skies during France's annual street music festival, the Fete de la Musique. Thomas SAMSON / AFP
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Olympic Balloon to Rise again in Paris

The iconic symbol of the 2024 Paris Olympic will take to the skies during France's annual street music festival, the Fete de la Musique. Thomas SAMSON / AFP
The iconic symbol of the 2024 Paris Olympic will take to the skies during France's annual street music festival, the Fete de la Musique. Thomas SAMSON / AFP

A giant balloon that became a popular landmark over the skies of Paris during the 2024 Olympics is set to rise again, with organizers hoping it will once again attract crowds of tourists.

During the Games, the Olympic cauldron tethered to a balloon flew above the Tuileries garden at sunset every day, with thousands flocking to see the seven-meter (23 feet) wide ring of electric fire, AFP said.

Last summer's version "had been thought up to last for the length of the Olympic and Paralympic Games," said Mathieu Lehanneur, the designer of the cauldron.

After President Emmanuel Macron "decided to bring it back, all of the technical aspects needed to be reviewed", he told AFP on Thursday.

Lehanneur said he was "very moved" that the Olympic balloon was making a comeback.

"The worst thing would have been for this memory to become a sitting relic that couldn't fly anymore," he said.

The new cauldron will take to the skies on Saturday evening during France's annual street music festival, the Fete de la Musique.

The balloon will rise into the air every evening until September 14 -- a summer tradition set to return every year until the 2028 Los Angeles Games.

"For its revival, we needed to make sure it changed as little as possible and that everything that did change was not visible," said Lehanneur.

With a decarbonated fire patented by French energy giant EDF, the upgraded balloon follows "the same technical principles" as its previous version, said director of innovation at EDF Julien Villeret.

The improved attraction "will last ten times longer" and be able to function for "300 days instead of 30", according to Villeret.

The creators of the balloon also reinforced the light-and-mist system that "makes the flames dance", he said.

Under the cauldron, a machine room hides cables, a compressor and a hydro-electric winch.

That system will "hold back the helium balloon when it rises and pull it down during descent", said Jerome Giacomoni, president of the Aerophile group that constructed the balloon.

"Filled with 6,200 m3 of helium that is lighter than air," the Olympic balloon "will be able to lift around three tons" of cauldron, cables and attached parts, he said.

The Tuileries garden is where French inventor Jacques Charles took flight in his first gas balloon on December 1, 1783, Giacomoni added.

He followed in the footsteps of the famed Montgolfier brothers, who had just nine days earlier elsewhere in Paris managed to launch a similar balloon into the sky with humans onboard.

The website vasqueparis2024.fr is to display the times when the modern-day balloon will rise and indicate any potential cancellations due to weather conditions.