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Over the past four years, a small Baltimore company led by a 23-year Army veteran has quietly made its mark in combat zones with an unlikely weapon: fast-drying cement.

Unlike traditional cements that can take many hours or days to harden, CeraTech Inc.'s line of repair products take roughly one to four hours to cure. They can then be driven over immediately with trucks or aircraft. That's been a boon for soldiers handling infrastructure repairs in Afghanistan and Iraq, where insurgents often lie in wait for U.S. troops to pour concrete, then hide improvised explosive devices in the still-wet mix where it sits primed to explode.

But CeraTech's repair work to date has mostly gone under the radar of industry observers -- and that's been intentional. The overseas efforts were just a stepping stone as CeraTech prepared to tackle another ailing infrastructure -- the one on the home front -- a mission brought into sharp focus with the deadly collapse of a heavily traveled bridge in Minnesota this month.

Cracking this market is no small feat. The U.S. cement industry is dominated by established giants, many of whom base their products on a proven basic recipe that's nearly 200 years old. CeraTech's products use a markedly different formulation, and its chief executive has been cautious to put the company's face out there too fast.

"We had issues with technology to perfect," says CeraTech's CEO Jon Hyman, 49 years old. "We needed to establish intellectual property. We needed to fly under the radar and get some brand equity. The risk of going the other way is you are pulling on Superman's cape."

It's a low-profile strategy small businesses sometimes forget in their rush to market. CeraTech has worked out kinks abroad and in initial U.S. tests with little scrutiny. And now there may be real opportunity, as government officials push harder to find solutions for repairing aging bridges and roadways with minimal disruption.

Scott Johnsen, senior supervising engineer for structures and design for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, says after Minneapolis, "we've been scrambling to pull info...and we're always asking, 'Is there a better way to build the mousetrap?'"

Over the past two years, the New Jersey authority has tested CeraTech cement products, which in addition to fast cure time also purport to bond better and to be more compatible with existing road and bridge materials. While "there's still a learning curve," Mr. Johnsen says, "we do believe their product will provide superior performance over other quick-setting materials we've been using."

Cement is one key component of concrete, which also includes water and aggregates such as rock and sand. Most cement manufacturers today base their products on a longstanding formula called Portland cement, which involves heating ground-up raw materials such as limestone, sand and shale at very high temperatures to produce a substance called "clinker." The process emits about one ton of carbon dioxide and requires a barrel of oil for every ton of cement produced, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The clinker is then supplemented with additives to alter its curing time or give it other properties.

"It's hard to compete with a product that's been around 100 years," says Rick Bohan, director of construction and manufacturing technology for the Skokie, Ill.-based Portland Cement Association. He says new formulations "don't have a track record," and that his members are working on their energy efficiency.

CeraTech, by contrast, uses no clinker, and makes most of its cements with 90% fly ash, a waste byproduct from the combustion of coal in electric plants. That distinction helps give CeraTech cements an environmentally friendly image the company can use as a selling chit.

By holding back widespread rollout of CeraTech products, Mr. Hyman says he has addressed certain criticisms with minimal disruption to business. One problem: His products were pricier than those of competitors. And CeraTech cement products weren't available in a bulk format that could be transported in traditional ways, such as the familiar spinning truck mixers. Instead, the product came in buckets intended primarily for small repairs.

Mr. Hyman says the company is now rolling out products that can be used in larger volume, with regular distribution methods, and at a lower cost.

As a small firm, Mr. Hyman says, "We had no constraints. We don't have a set way to approach things." He says he expects sales -- which totaled $6 million in 2006, mostly to military buyers -- to double this year as the company gains traction in the U.S.

Texas has tested CeraTech cements recently, along with 35 other states. Workers in Texas used one of the company's cements to repair a portion of a bridge deck with high-volume truck traffic in Nacogdoches. The repair, 5 by 15 feet, was completed in 10 hours, about half what it would have taken with other high-strength cement products, says Paul Montgomery, director of maintenance for the Lufkin district of the Texas DOT.

By GWENDOLYN BOUNDS 

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