Decarbonization of Building Materials: Rapid, Low Cost and Room Temperature Manufacturing of Next-Generation Cementitious Materials with ~97% Industrial Wastes

C56-19c-273039The buildings and construction sector accounted for 36% of the energy use and 39% of energy and process-related CO2 emissions in 2018, 11% of which resulted from manufacturing cement. Cement is the key ingredient to concrete, the dominant material for building construction. Cement production has the most energy intensive manufacturing process (~4 GJ/ton) and emits ~0.8 ton of CO2 per each ton of cement, making it the 3rd largest culprit to CO2 emissions worldwide. To address above-mentioned challenge, the overarching goal of this project is to demonstrate a universal approach to turn various industrial wastes (slag, ash, etc.) to cementitious binders, rivaling OPC in performance while up to 97% of the binder is the waste and the rest are eco-friendly low-cost additives. The technology is tolerant to various waste compositions, works with different activators, applies to both precast and cast-in-place construction products, and scales up easily via continuous processes. This phase I project will scale-up our lab scale manufacturing, followed by thorough standard characterization and pilot testing to demonstrate continuous processing of at least 1 ton/day waste feed. C-Crete’s 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.