Products
Prepare the concrete (Base Layers)
Seal & bond (Surface Barrier)
Protect & finish (Topcoats & Sealers)
Complete systems (Multi-Layer)
Technical detail (Long Form)
Prepare the concrete (Base Layers)
Seal & bond (Surface Barrier)
Protect & finish (Topcoats & Sealers)
Complete systems (Multi-Layer)
Technical detail (Long Form)
Technical detail
The short version is on the product page. This is the mechanism: what the polymerizing silicone does to a CeramycGuard surface, where AquaGuard belongs in the stack, and what we deliberately do not claim for it yet.
AquaGuard™ is the sealer Zirconia specifies where concrete never gets a chance to dry out. It is not a separate coating laid over the surface. It is a polymerizing silicone taken into a cured CeramycGuard™ surface, which glassifies that ceramic into a dense glass-phase material. Because the silicone goes into the ceramic rather than on top of it, the finished face is one material, and there is no discrete layer that can lose adhesion later.
That matters because of what it is built on. CeramycGuard is an inorganic geopolymer ceramic that condenses into a continuous network of bridging oxygens, silicon and aluminum atoms tied together by shared oxygen. The same condensation runs into the concrete's own framework at the interface, so the ceramic grows into the substrate instead of sitting on it. AquaGuard's contribution is density: it glassifies that network, which is why Zirconia describes the result as surface glassification rather than as a seal coat in the ordinary sense.
On existing concrete the order is Ceramic System PoreBlocker™, then CeramycGuard™, then AquaGuard™. PoreBlocker penetrates the pore network of hardened concrete and rebuilds the binder as calcium aluminosilicate hydrate, CeramycGuard builds the bonded ceramic face, and AquaGuard glassifies it. On new concrete, ActiveCure™ takes PoreBlocker's place as the preparation step, because it joins the hydration reaction while the concrete is still curing. Benjamin Cook worked through that same three-step build on 19 August 2026: concrete treated with PoreBlocker, then the CeramycGuard layer, then CeramycGuard infused with the polymerizing silicone.
Sewer concrete has a specific failure mode. Hydrogen sulfide in the headspace is oxidized by bacteria into sulfuric acid, which attacks calcium hydroxide and the calcium silicate hydrate binder, releasing gypsum and silica gel. The concrete is not being worn away, it is being eaten from its weakest phase outward. A CeramycGuard face changes what the acid finds: it presents an aluminosilicate network rather than calcium hydroxide, and that bridging-oxygen network resists hydrolysis across biogenic acid conditions. No calcium-rich target, no reaction. AquaGuard makes that face denser still.
Benjamin Cook also describes AquaGuard as antimicrobial, which is why he specifies it where biological corrosion is the driver rather than abrasion or salt. We attribute that to him and publish no efficacy figure behind it. Zirconia does not sell an antimicrobial agent, and the durability argument on this page rests on the surface chemistry above, not on any biocidal action. Zirconia's British Engineering Excellence Award was won for wastewater infrastructure restoration in the United Kingdom, which is the same class of asset.
A CeramycGuard surface has a nanostructured porosity profile, roughly 1 to 10 nm, with essentially no capillary porosity at the micrometer scale. Liquid water needs pores wide enough to overcome surface tension, typically over 100 nm under environmental pressure, so it cannot be driven in. Individual water-vapor molecules, about 0.27 nm across, still diffuse out through the connected nanopore network. Dissolved contaminants travel in liquid water, so if the liquid cannot get in, neither can they. The concrete underneath keeps breathing, which is the difference between this and an impermeable organic coating that traps moisture and blisters.
AquaGuard is for liquid-water exposure: immersion, industrial washdown, freeze-thaw saturation, and splash or tidal zones as a problem-specific addition. It is not the coastal or chloride default. Chloride attack is ionic migration through the pore solution, so the defense is internal, not a surface seal: PoreBlocker refines the pore network and builds the aluminate sites that bind incoming chloride, with CeramycGuard sealing the face. The coastal specification stays PoreBlocker, CeramycGuard, then Fortress XD™ or BulletProof™.
Zirconia has not yet issued an AquaGuard technical data sheet, product sheet or one-sheet, so we hold no coverage rate, no film build, no cure schedule, no VOC figure and no test result for it. Rather than estimate any of those, this page publishes none of them. The Miami-Dade County Notice of Acceptance held by Zirconia covers CeramycGuard specifically and is not an approval of AquaGuard.
If you are writing a specification and you need AquaGuard documentation, request AquaGuard™ documentation from our team and we will send whatever Zirconia has issued at the time you ask. The short form of this product, with the traits at a glance and where it is specified, is at AquaGuard™ glassified concrete sealer.
Questions
A polymerizing silicone that is taken into a cured CeramycGuard ceramic surface and glassifies it, so the finished face is one dense glass-phase material rather than a sealer sitting on a coating. Benjamin Cook described it in exactly those terms on 19 August 2026, and the point he draws from it is that there is no separate layer to debond.
Sewer concrete typically fails by microbial induced corrosion. Bacteria convert hydrogen sulfide into sulfuric acid, which attacks calcium hydroxide and the calcium silicate hydrate binder, releasing gypsum and silica gel. A CeramycGuard face presents an aluminosilicate network instead, so there is no portlandite for that acid to consume, and AquaGuard densifies that face further. Zirconia also describes AquaGuard as antimicrobial. We publish no efficacy figure for that, and Zirconia does not sell an antimicrobial agent.
Not by default. Chloride attack is ionic migration through the pore solution, so the defense is internal rather than a liquid-water seal coat: PoreBlocker refines the pore network and builds the calcium aluminosilicate hydrate that binds chloride, and CeramycGuard seals the surface. The coastal specification is PoreBlocker, then CeramycGuard, then Fortress XD or BulletProof. AquaGuard is added for a specific liquid-water problem, such as a splash or tidal zone, not as the coastal baseline.
We do not publish any of them. No AquaGuard technical data sheet, product sheet or one-sheet has been issued to us, so this page carries no application numbers and no test results at all. That is deliberate. Ask us for AquaGuard documentation and we will send whatever Zirconia has issued at the time you ask.
No. It works as part of the system, into a cured CeramycGuard surface. On existing concrete, PoreBlocker prepares the substrate first, penetrating the pore network and rebuilding the binder. On new concrete, ActiveCure does that preparation job instead.
Talk to our technical team about wastewater structures, sanitary sewers and washdown floors, and about the documentation you need for the specification.