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| Cement Photo by Life Of Pix from Pexels |
New York City's Highbury Concrete has a contractor for superstructures since its inception in 2013. One of Highbury Concrete’s missions is to promote environmentally safe practices as a part of using concrete as a building material.
Concrete, itself, has recently gone a transformation in becoming a material that is safer to use in the environment as opposed to its traditional composition. Concrete’s current composition is contributing to the world’s increasing carbon emission problem. Comprised mostly of cement and an aggregate of gravel, limestone or granite, or finer particles, concrete is the world’s second used material behind water and contributes to between five and seven percent of the world’s emission of carbon (when cement is heated it releases carbon). While it would be great to eliminate the material, more than 70 percent of the world’s population lives in some concrete structure.
However, researchers have found a way to hold onto this valuable material while preserving the environment. One group of researchers has developed an alkali-activated concrete that contains alkali waste products (i.e. fly ash, biofuel bottom ash) and industrial wastes (i.e. silica gel, blast furnace slag, and meta-kaolin). These materials can melt and bind to each other like traditional concrete without releasing carbon into the atmosphere.
Researchers in London have also developed a material that absorbs carbon dioxide as it begins to harden. The manufacturer’s name is Novacem, and the concrete uses magnesium sulfate, a material that requires less heat. The concrete could potentially absorb .6 tons of carbon dioxide per each ton of cement used.
