No 11 (2025)

On September 10–11, 2025, the 12th International Scientific and Practical Conference “Efficiency enhancement of gypsum materials and products manufacturing and usage” was held in Saransk, the capital of the Republic of Mordovia. Since the conference is held every two years, the experts are looking forward to it with special impatience, and participation becomes literally mandatory.

Traditionally, the main organizers of the conference are the Russian Gypsum Association, the National Research Moscow State University of Civil Engineering, and the Scientific Research Institute of Building Physics. This year the conference was co-organized by the National Research Mordovia State University named after N.P.Ogarev with support of the Government of the Republic of Mordovia.

The permanent general sponsor of the conference is KNAUF-GYPSUM LLC.

The official sponsors of the 12th conference were Polyplast, the largest Russian manufacturer of construction chemicals, and the Turkish engineering company Parget Vakina.

At preparation the conference was supported by one of the largest Russian cement manufacturers, CEMROS (Mordovcement), a young and ambitious Mordovian company NPO Exponenta (with a strong scientific and production potential), JSC Pigment (TM KRATA), as well as the largest European manufacturer of equipment for gypsum and gypsum materials production French company Alpha Platre, and the conference debutant Turkish engineering company Varlik Makina.

The journal «Construction Materials» was and remains the Conference general information partner. For the event in the August issue we prepared the articles thematic selection, which was received by all participants.

There were more than 200 participants from the Russian Federation regions, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Turkey and China. The Conference program included more than 30 plenary and sectional reports, an off-site session to Mordovian Cement (the company CEMROS) and the NGO «Exponenta».

A traditional meeting of dry mortar products and equipment manufacturers was held in St. Petersburg on August 19–21, 2025. The conference is organized by the event agency «Quintet» (St. Petersburg), which celebrated quarter century of its main event this year. Traditionally, the scientific support of the conference was provided by scientists from the National Research Moscow State University of Civil Engineering (Moscow), as well as representatives of the Russian Builders Union; the «National Association of Building Materials and the Construction Industry Manufacturers « (NOPSM); the Russian Gypsum Association; the Association «Union of Dry Mortar Manufacturers», and information support was provided by us – the journal «Construction Materials», whicch has been the event main media partner for many years.

POLYPLAST Group of Companies (Novomoskovsk, Tula region), the largest manufacturer of chemical additives, became the conference general sponsor this year.

The sponsors were also RUSKHIMSET JSC, a national universal chemical distributor in Russia and the CIS countries; Stroymechanika Group of Companies (Tula), a leading Russian industrial equipment manufacturer; and the companyn Varlik Makina, one of the Turkish engineering industry leaders specializing in the equipment for dry mortor production.

The anniversary event broke last year’s record for the number of participants – 379 specialists from 189 companies, 26 of them had not participated previously; also guests from 8 foreign countries – China, Turkey, India, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan – took part in the conference.

The article studies the effect of the mineral additive of finely ground blast furnace slag on the properties of a composite gypsum binder. The research established the granulometric composition of the mineral additive and its particle size distribution; studied the morphology with a large number of structural defects (chips with pointed and chipped areas) with a developed rough surface of particles, contributing to an increase in the hydraulic activity of the mineral additive; determined the rational amount of the mineral additive of finely ground slag to ensure regulation of the CaO concentration in the gypsum-cement system within the recommended limits (according to TU 21-31-62–89); and established the presence of active adsorption centers on the surface of finely ground slag particles. The paper presents a comparison of the physical and mechanical properties of gypsum-cement concrete using a fine-ground slag mineral additive, Melflux 1641 F; Sika Visco Crete 200, and Sunbo PC-1021 superplasticizers, and citric acid as a setting retarder. The phase composition and microstructure of gypsum-cement stone were studied. Based on the developed gypsum-cement concrete, fine-grained concrete with increased water resistance (K_r=0,83) of strength class B30 was obtained by modifying the gypsum-cement hardening system with a set of multifunctional additives, including a fine-ground slag mineral additive, Melflux 1641 F superplasticizer, and citric acid as a setting retarder, as well as using quartz sand filler with an optimized particle size distribution.

High-strength concrete composites based on nanostructured additives and small aggregates from local deposits Obtaining is an urgent task. The I/C reducing possibility by the mixing water surface tension values reduction using a comprehensive nanomodifier is established. It is shown that combined use of silicon acid sol gel nanoparticles and Frem Giper S-TB hyperplasticizer leads to the water surface tension decrease to 31.4 mN/m. It has been experimentally established that when using comprehensive nano-additives in fine-grained concrete based on a fine aggregate from the deposit in the Chechen Republic and with the concrete mixture mobility of P1, the strength of the obtained samples was 61.17 MPa. When using this comprehensive nanoadditive in fine-grained concrete based on a monofractive standard aggregate with the mobility of P1, high-strength composites with a strength of more than 70 MPa were obtained. High-strength fine-grained concretes with low deformations based on local sands with a low coarseness modulus were obtained with the combined use of silicon acid sol gel nanoparticles and Frem Giper S-TB hyperplasticizer at a standard cement consumption. X-ray phase studies show a significant decrease in the reflection of peaks belonging to portlandite Ca(OH)₂ when using a comprehensive additive. At the same time, the intensity of low-base calcium hydrosilicates peaks increases, which leads to a higher binding capacity. The obtained results make it possible to control early structuring of fine-grained concretes by impact the surface tension of aqueous surfactant solutions in cement concretes measured value.

The article discusses current issues related to integrating industrial by-products into building materials production as a vector of innovation for the construction industry. It is shown that this direction corresponds to the global trend of resource and energy saving in the construction industry. The implementation problem is that despite the significant scientific groundwork of the Russian school of construction materials science in the field of industrial waste disposal, their large-scale practical application has not yet been implemented. The aim of the work is to form a multi-level system of approaches to the industrial by-products usage, for which tasks to identify restraining problems, determine ways to solve them and develop proposals for pilot projects taking into account regional peculiarities have been set. Three groups of problems are highlighted: technological (instability of raw material properties, lack of uniform control methods), organizational and managerial (imperfect legal framework, lack of incentive system) and economic (lack of funding, high processing costs, risks of demand limitation). As a strategic way forward, interaction in the triad “government – science – business” is proposed, detailed through a responsibility matrix, where the key role is assigned to the state in creating a regulatory framework and incentive system. As tactical measures, options for pilot projects using metallurgical slags for the Voronezh Region are proposed, including the production of dry mortar, multicomponent binders, small-piece products and their integration into one enterprise based on the concept of “flexible technology”.