Basic Information

The most important application in the field of renovating old buildings is the temporary protection of sensitive surfaces. The usage makes sense only when the usual protection by covering with plastic or adhesive tape doesn't work. For example if no tape would stick or if, through injecting or pressing, the contamination is to be expected from the surface itself. Here a blocking sealing off before the pressing starts is the unrivalled method of protection.

Two different ways of application showed very good results for the concrete application of using cyclododecane to seal off a surface during injection jobs.

1) Sealing Off by Using a Spray Can

In this case the surface will be covered with a relatively soft, but absolutely water-proof film. It does not have any blocking effect. Suspension can emerge in the respective area by simply braking through the film. The emerging suspension can't result in a contamination, because it will simply run off over the film in the direct vicinity. It is not possible that anything would go underneath the film. This only happens when using tape.

Advantages of this method

Simple form of application without any further preparation

fast evaporation of the film and therefore fast restoring of the original surface

2) Sealing Off by Using a Melt

This can result in a very high solidity of the film. Cracks of 2mm can resist a suspension pressure of up to 10 bar. The melt can be brought on in two different ways:

Spraying procedure using a hot-spraying machine. In this case cyclododecane is melted and sprayed at temperature of more than 80°C.

Manual procedure, using a brush to bring on the melt. In this case the melt must be thinned with about 10% of a thinner, depending in the surface. Even this "thinned“ melt should be applied with a minimum temperature of 80°C (water bath). The film created this way must not be strained for 1 to 2 hours, i.e. until after the evaporation of the thinner.

This film has a somewhat lower resistance to pressure compared to a film from pure melt.

The advantage of using a film from a melt is the high resistance to mechanical pressure. A blocking of cracks during injections- and pressing jobs including the side jobs is not necessary, because the removal of the block is not necessary.

A disadvantage is the decisively longer time it takes to evaporate. This may take up to 6 weeks. In exceptional cases the cyclododecane-film can be removed quicker by using a hot-air blower.