Reactive CO2 Capture and Conversion in Underutilzied Waste Streams to Make Synthetic Aggregates for Concrete

Deep decarbonization of the industrial sector (steel plants, cement plants, H2 production plants, etc) poses a significant challenge. The conventional CO2 capture approach is to first separate/capture CO2 from process emissions or pre/post-combustion flue gases and then, as applicable, to regenerate the capture medium (e.g. amines) and to compress, transport, and store or otherwise utilize the purified CO2 in other applications. The act of capturing CO2 in this method is often accompanied downstream by energy intensive and costly support infrastructure and processes to capture, purify, compress, transport and/or store the captured CO2, and to regenerate the capture medium. It is thus highly desired in terms of energy efficiencies and costs to employ a ôreactive captureö approach to carbon capture. In the reactive capture approach, the act of capturing CO2 and converting it into a higher value product is integrated into one continuous process onsite ľ thus eliminating the potential need to separately regenerate the capture medium and the need to purify, compress, transport, or store the captured CO2. Capitalizing on our promising lab scale results, the overarching objective of this project is to demonstrate mineralization of CO2 from point sources into underutilized waste streams to create synthetic carbonnegative aggregates for use in concrete. The phase I SBIR project will optimize our processes to accommodate gas stream from industrial point sources (with similar temperature, pressure, composition, contaminant, impurities, etc), followed by standard testing of the produced aggregates and performing preliminary TEA/LCA for comparison to incumbent aggregates. The goal is to have at least 25% lower life cycle emissions versus incumbent aggerates from cradle to gate basis (A1-A3). In phase II, we will optimize our process yield, scale-up our technology to work with actual gas streams of industrial plants and perform pilot testing on a large concrete slab to demonstrate real world application. C-Creteĺs experience in projects with similar complexity along with our state-of-the-art facilities and equipment and relationships with key industry players will catalyze our commercialization efforts.