Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) is a National Institution which is engaged to standardize various Engineering practices for their implementation for achieving the desired quality along-with end results of the subject as a whole.
The Civil Engineering Division (CED) of BIS handles different topics and sub-topics related to this fraternity. Manufacturing concrete has always been of prime importance for any Civil Engineer and so it is for BIS. Accordingly many parameters related to quality assurance for concrete have been addressed at BIS.
With exponential growth in chemical and allied industries like pharmaceutical, agrochemical, fertilizer etc across the globe, new chemicals are being formulated and put forward. This activity has a serious side effect and that is the corrosive index of these chemicals. As it is known fact, concrete is having poor resistance to chemicals having very high pH and very low pH. It is also sensitive to few solvents and other chemicals irrespective of their pH value. Concrete requires a systematic protection against its exposure to these chemicals under which functionality of that concrete member continues without any damage.
This protection is addressed in different IS Codes for acid alkali resistant treatment.
These IS Codes are in practice to set effective parameters of materials and application methods which are to be strictly followed for the desired result of particular treatment. As mentioned earlier, with the entry of a new generation of chemicals with high corrosive indices, it is the need of this hour to review the methodology, material specifications and many such factors to update them to make them compatible for effectively protecting concrete members exposed to such corrosive chemicals or combination of them. Need of the hour; also desires evolution of newer methods and materials to effectively fight out the corrosive conditions generated by new generation chemicals.
Summarizing these challenges, a task has been taken up at Bureau of Indian Standards to review all IS Codes relevant to the topic of acid alkali resistant treatment to update them and make them like a practicable guide to the ultimate benefit of concrete members to ensure their desired functional life even under their exposure to corrosive chemicals.