What are concrete dyes? 
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Just a few decades ago, concrete was gray and boring, but thanks to the fact that modern technologies never stand still, it was possible to obtain bright colors for this building material. Today, the most common concrete products can be safely called paving slabs, which come not only in different colors, but also in absolutely unimaginable shades. You can simply mix several pigments and get the desired result. But ordinary paints won’t help much here. We need specialized options designed specifically for painting concrete.
Iron oxide pigments: main varieties and beneficial properties
Iron oxide pigment is a kind of powder, thanks to which you can give any color to concrete, both at the production stage and at the finish of finished products. The powder contains a wide variety of components, but the most important ones can be identified:
- titanium dioxide;
- iron oxides;
- powder chrome.
But the composition also contains many secret components that manufacturers are silent about, because this is a production secret that affects the quality and cost of products. The beauty of this pigment is that even after drying, it does not lose its color. Concrete may be exposed to constant direct sunlight or even treated with oil and oil-containing liquids, but the paint will not lose its color. Painted concrete will last for decades in its original intended color, making it a very worthwhile investment without the need for restoration work.
Coloring when mixing concrete
One of the possible options for painting concrete is painting while mixing. You can simply dilute the pigment with water, which is used to prepare the solution, and leave it to mix in a special installation or a commonplace concrete mixer. The advantage of this type of painting is that all concrete will be painted as evenly and quickly as possible. The color saturation or tone of a shade can be changed in the process by adding one or another pigment in a certain amount.
This technology is most often used in the manufacture of paving slabs in order to streamline production and save workers from the need to paint each individual unit of product.
Painting a finished concrete structure
If you paint ready-made concrete structures, the paint will also perform its direct functions and will not be able to fade over the years in the sun. In order to prepare the paint of the desired color, you should take a base. This can be a varnish, a dye, or any other colorless water repellent intended for treating concrete. The deeper it can penetrate into the structure of the solution, the more reliable and durable the result will be. The pigment is diluted in the main component until completely dissolved. But as in the first option, you can adjust the color saturation and shade of the finished product, which is very convenient.