Displaying items by tag: CO2

Canada/US: Harsco’s Environmental division has invested US$2.3m in Carbicrete, a Canadian technology company developing concrete products made with steel slag for the construction industry. The investment will give Harsco Environmental a Board seat in Carbicrete and has been made in conjunction with a US$1.6m grant from the Government of Canada’s Sustainability Development Technology Canada Foundation and applications to further government grant programs. Harsco’s investment will aid the development of the technology through a demonstration program with support from a commercial concrete block manufacturer as part of a development consortium.

“This investment in innovation is aligned with Harsco’s on-going expansion into environmentally-focused products and services, and we are proud to support the development of this exciting technology,” said Harsco Environmental chief operating officer Russ Mitchell.

Carbicrete is developing a technology that allows the production of concrete without using cement by using steel slag instead. The concrete mix is poured into molds, like conventional concrete, and is then cured using CO₂. During curing, the gas becomes a solid, binding together the slag granules, and giving the concrete its strength. Carbicrete says the process can be implemented in any precast concrete manufacturing plant. It also says that the technology is ‘carbon negative’ because more CO₂ is consumed than emitted during the process.

Ireland: Ecocem says that its slag cement products have saved 10Mt of CO₂ emissions compared to regular cement since it started trading in 2002. It produces cement products from ground granulated blastfurnace slag (GGBS). It says its GGBS cement has a carbon footprint of 32kg CO₂/t compared to 850 - 900kg CO₂/t for Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). The Irish company operates four plants in Europe with a production capacity of 2.4Mt/yr.