Pigment Amount and Color Effect

If the customer knows the correct amount of the pigment to be used, excess use can be prevented, leading to cost reduction.

When the amount of pigment added to the concrete blend is increased, initially there is a direct increase in color strength as the amount increased. If the amount is further increased, color strength reaches its saturation point. This is very clear from the graph as well as the photos of the colored concrete block below.

Of course the amount added can be set beyond the saturation point where the color does not become darker even if more than that amount of pigment is added, but for a synthetic iron oxide pigment with strong color strength such as Bayferrox the saturation point is at 5-8 % of the cement amount. However, for pigments with poor color strength, the saturation point is reached after adding more pigment. In order to avoid increasing the amount of the fine powder added to the concrete blend more than necessary, a pigment with weak color strength should be used to obtain the coloring effect with smallest amount of possible. With pigments that have high color strength, a considerably large amount must be added and this can become problematic in terms of concrete strength.