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The benefits of binders produced with significantly reduced, little, or no process energy that have a small carbon footprint, are composed of recycled and/or renewable resources, and have minimal environmental impact will be discussed.

Concrete is unique among building materials. Its formulation is highly influenced by its application. Design professionals and contractors have a greater influence on concrete formulation than they do with other building products. Concrete can be made stronger, lighter, more flowable, stiffer, less permeable, and even weaker depending on performance needs. No other building material is that versatile. This presentation will discuss how design and construction teams can implement ten simple strategies to reduce concrete’s carbon footprint today. The recommendations are listed broadly in order of priority, but not in order of impact reduction. All are important and should be implemented. In addition, the strategies are meant to achieve a lower carbon footprint without impacting other desired performance capabilities for the concrete.

This presentation will review and provide examples of challenges faced by a concrete producer from perspective "low carbon" specifications, and contrasting projects where these issues have been avoided, while still providing significant carbon reduction to the project.

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The presentation demonstrates the acceleration of carbonation kinetics rate in nanostructured interfaces of cementitious systems, crucial for CO2 mineralization in concrete, using 2D carbon-based nanomaterials. Highly exfoliated/nearly monolayered graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) with 3-5x higher specific surface area than the surface area of cement grains were used. NanoIR mapping on sub-10 nm nanomaterial/C-S-H interfaces of carbonated specimens shown the formation of active sites that generate large quantities of Ca(OH)2 and CaO essential for CO2 mineralization, i.e., CaCO3 formation. A 50-80% higher nanoscale modulus of elasticity and elastic strain energy absorption capability of the carbonated nanostructured interfaces over the material without the GNP reinforcement was demonstrated through quantitative nanomechanical property mapping. Such enhancements in the carbonation kinetics and nanomechanical properties indicate improved CO2 mitigation potential and increased strengthening and toughening/resiliency of carbonated engineered concrete, important performance factors for the material’s serviceability.

With low-carbon concrete requirements gaining momentum worldwide, the construction industry needs to take sustainability education to the next level. In view of the fact that concrete's climate change impact and its solutions vary across regions, education should be provided uniformly and in a large-scale manner based on local conditions. The ACI 130 Committee has developed and organized the Eco Concrete Competition since 2017. This competition aims to promote the idea of environmental performance in concrete mix designs and to think critically about low-impact solutions while considering their performance. This presentation will discuss the structure and experiences of organizing three versions of the competition. The importance of life cycle accounting, the context-specificity of solutions, and concrete performance accounting in educating the upcoming generation of civil engineers will be elaborated. The streamlined life cycle assessment (LCA) tool developed for this competition will be showcased as a possible educational tool for civil engineering students. Finally, lessons learned by and from student participants will be provided to clarify the points that should be emphasized in the LCA education of concrete.