Dow Construction Chemicals offers ECOGROUND™ flooring solutions for sports projects and WALOCEL™ grades of gypsum-based renders for self-levelling cementitious flooring. These are being use by construction chemicals and dry-mix mortar manufacturers.BASF offers industrial flooring and machine grout solutions as well as flooring systems from the Master Builders Solutions portfolio. Rajesh Goyal, Managing Director, RG Group, and Vice-President, CREDAI NCR sees good scope for flooring compounds for resistance to chemical attacks, abrasion, moisture, fire, heat and sound. However, while he notes that the industrial flooring sector has been growing at over 15 per cent recently, he says concerns about the health hazards of chemical-based floorings expressed in the international market have restricted the RG Group’s use of those products in residential units.“Demand for flooring products is on the rise in India owing to safety and hygiene requirements and the increasing focus on energy-efficiency,” says Sagar Saxena, Project Head, Spectrum Metro. The trend is to use epoxy and resin flooring compounds and, of late, polyurethane concrete solutions in areas that require heat and chemical resistance. In residential properties, the use of chemical-based flooring compounds is limited to areas with higher footfalls during the day.“Flooring compounds have a bright future in the industrial sector, especially in the food packaging and pharmaceutical sectors where one needs abrasion-resistant, non-dust generating floors,” says Chetan Raikar, Chairman & Managing Director, Structwel Designers & Consultants. In the residential sector, he sees scope for flooring compounds only for creating decorative flooring in areas such as hardscapes (in the garden) or pool sides, not so much for regular floors that are required to be impact-resistant.- CHARU BAHRI