Technical reference · honed & grind-and-seal concrete
Honed concrete, down to the chemistry.
Concrete is the surface a mineral sol-gel bonds to best, and this page is about what is specific to it: the full-strength covalent bond, and the alkaline pore water and prep realities that decide how long it lasts. The shared science, the mechanism, the four resistances and the head-to-head against older sealers, lives in the pillars, linked as you go. MineralProtect is part of the one and only next-generation sol-gel surface protective coating in Australia. Nothing else works like this.
A cross-linked silicon-oxygen-silicon network, water-based, PFAS-free by design.
Around ninety to one hundred nanometres, conformal. Not a film on top, not a repellent down the pore.
Cement paste and quartz aggregate carry reactive silica, so the bond is covalent on cure.
Non-pigmenting. Same honed colour, finish and feel. Only surface energy changes.
Leaves the pore network open, so the slab keeps releasing moisture. It does not cap the surface the way a film does.
On the repellency function, per job, sitting on top of Australian Consumer Law.
The bond
Why concrete is the ideal case.
A sol-gel only integrates with a surface that offers it reactive silanol groups to condense with. Concrete offers them in abundance, in the cement paste and in the quartz-rich aggregate, so the bond here is genuinely covalent. That is the concrete-specific advantage. The generic mechanism, how a sol-gel hydrolyses, condenses and cures as a colourless network around ninety to one hundred nanometres thin, is the same on every surface and is set out in full in how sealing actually works.
A full-strength covalent bond, not adhesion
Concrete's cement paste and its quartz aggregate carry reactive silanol groups at the surface. On cure, the sol's own silanols condense with them into genuine covalent silicon-oxygen-silicon bonds continuous with the surface. This is chemical integration, not a coating stuck on top, and it is full strength on concrete, the same as on glass, granite and quartzite. It is why we lead with concrete: it is the surface this chemistry was made for.
A surface coating, not a consolidant
Applied thin and cured to the contour, it changes the surface energy of the concrete without touching the honed colour, finish or feel. To be clear about what it is not: it is a surface coating, not a deep consolidant. It does not penetrate millimetres, does not re-cement the slab and does not strengthen the concrete. There is legitimate science on deep sol-gel consolidants that do that, but that is a different product to ours, and we are careful never to imply it.
What is specific to concrete
The concrete-only variables.
Most of what decides a seal is shared across every surface, and it lives in the pillars below. A few things are true only of concrete, and they are exactly what a specifier needs to get right. These are the ones to own.
Concrete only · 01
Alkaline pore water and carbonation
Concrete's own pore solution is highly alkaline, and high alkalinity is what slowly cleaves a sealer's anchor bonds. The catch for a penetrating impregnator is that it buries its anchor in the deep interior, the exact reservoir that stays alkaline. Our network sits at the surface, which has carbonated and is in contact with air and only brief, rinsed cleaning, and we seal cured concrete, not green. So the surface we bond to is not the alkaline reservoir, and the durability never rested on one bond being invincible. It rests on redundancy across many bonds in an inorganic backbone.
Concrete only · 02
Prep decides longevity as much as chemistry
Bleed water floats a weak laitance skin that destroys the adhesion of any coating, and green concrete needs its full cure before anything goes on. Whether the finish is honed or grind-and-seal, the surface has to be sound: a failing cure-and-seal or topcoat has to be ground back to bare, sound concrete first, because ours will only bond to concrete, not to a spent film. This is why the guarantee runs through certified application, not a bottle poured over a bad surface.
Concrete only · 03
Acid attacks the cement, not the coating
Wine, citrus and strong acidic or alkaline cleaners attack the cement in the surface itself. The coating slows how fast a spill soaks in and buys wipe-up time. It is not an acid barrier, and no penetrating sealer is. The one surface where a coating genuinely prevents etching is glass, not concrete, so we never claim it here.
Concrete only · 04
Colourless where the enhancers darken, and slip
The coating is colourless and non-pigmenting: same honed colour, same finish, only the surface energy changes. That matters on concrete, because the enhancer-grade impregnators most people are offered darken the slab, the opposite of changing nothing. And on slip: we do not rate the floor non-slip and will not. It is microscopically thin and changes surface energy, not texture, so it does not glaze the floor slicker the way a thick gloss topcoat can.
On how it is measured: this class is rated by repellency retention across recognised wet-scrub and abrasion cycles, not by a hero bead angle off rough concrete, which is mostly the roughness. Beading is the first thing to soften and fades before the protection does, so loss of beading is a prompt to re-test, not proof of failure.
The shared science, in the pillars
Everything else is the same story.
The rest of why this holds up is not concrete-specific. It is the same on stone and glass, so rather than re-tell it here, we point you straight into the deep dives. Each is a full article.
The mechanism
For decades there were two ways to seal: a film on top, or a sealer in the pore. Ours is a third class that bonds at the surface itself. The full mechanism, in plain English. How sealing works →
The four resistances
A floor is scrubbed, mopped, baked under UV and fouled with oil, and every load acts at the surface. Cleaning, chemical, UV and oil, each with its honest bound. Surface resistance →
The head-to-head
Film versus impregnator versus a bonded coating: why a cure-and-seal film blushes and peels, why a pore sealer fails from inside, and where the new class wins. Sealer types compared →
For the technical buyer
The concrete-specific questions.
Does honed and grind-and-seal both take it the same way?
Yes. Both present a ground, sound concrete surface: cement paste and exposed quartz aggregate, both carrying the reactive silica the sol-gel condenses with. The bond is the same full-strength covalent bond on either finish. What differs is only the prep. The surface has to be sound and clean, with any failing cure-and-seal or topcoat ground back first, and green concrete given its full cure before we seal.
Concrete pore water is highly alkaline. Doesn't that attack the bond?
It turns on exposure, not bond strength. Alkaline hydrolysis needs a hydroxide source to sit on the anchor and dwell. That high-pH pore solution is the concrete's deep interior, which is exactly where a penetrating sealer buries its anchor, permanently bathed in it. Our network is at the surface, in contact with air and only brief, dilute, rinsed cleaning, and the coated face has carbonated. We also seal cured concrete, not green, so the surface we bond to is not the alkaline reservoir. And the durability was never staked on one bond being invincible. It rests on redundancy across many bonds in an inorganic backbone.
Does it consolidate or strengthen the concrete?
No, and we are careful not to imply it. There is legitimate science on deep sol-gel consolidants that react through several millimetres and strengthen a substrate, but that is a different product to ours. MineralProtect is a thin surface coating. It bonds into the surface and changes how the surface behaves. It does not penetrate millimetres, re-cement the slab or add structural strength.
Is it really PFAS-free, and what about VOC?
It is PFAS-free by design, not by reformulation. The oil-repelling sealers that worked on stone were fluoropolymer chemistry, now being regulated out, and Australia has banned PFOA, PFOS and PFHxS. Our mechanism never needed fluorine to perform, because it works by surface energy on an inorganic network. It is a water-based, low-VOC coating, tested at independent, accredited testing houses.
Why not just specify a cheaper penetrating impregnator?
For a slab you never clean and never look at, a good impregnator is a reasonable tool. On an appearance-critical, trafficked, cleaned floor it is the wrong location. It builds repellency down the pore, where weather and cleaning cannot reach to renew it, so the easy-clean surface you actually use fades first while the chemistry is still in the concrete, with no visible end-of-life cue. Ours works at the surface, renews with a top-up rather than a re-flood over a degraded face, and stays colourless where the enhancer grades darken the concrete. The full head-to-head is in sealer types compared.
Go deeper on the shared science: how sealing works · the four resistances · sealer types compared
Or step back: the plain-English honed concrete guide · The Sealing Library
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Sealed to spec.
We'll prepare and seal your honed or grind-and-seal concrete with MineralProtect, applied to a certified standard and registered under a 10-year guarantee.