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High carbon emissions of cementitious materials are increasingly raising concerns under the grand goal of global carbon neutrality. This presentation will introduce an approach to achieve low-carbon cementitious materials and enhance the mechanical properties while retaining the desired constructability for cast-in-place and precast applications of civil infrastructure. The proposed approach utilizes CO2 to produce a CaCO3 suspension that is uniformly dispersed and used to prepare cement pastes. The mechanical properties were tested, and the results showed that the 28-day compressive strength was increased by up to 16%. Further research was conducted to understand the effects of CaCO3 suspension on cement hydration kinetics and microstructures of cement pastes through isothermal calorimetry, thermal gravimetry analysis, mercury intrusion porosimetry, dynamic light scattering analysis, and scanning electron microscopy. The results revealed that the CaCO3 suspension promoted cement hydration and densified the microstructures because of the nucleation effect caused by the high-level dispersion of CaCO3 particles. The proposed approach provides an alternative solution for CO2 utilization in the concrete industry with minimal modification of the manufacturing facility and offers a promising avenue for achieving low-carbon infrastructure.

Buildings are a significant source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Much has been done to lower operational carbon. However, GHG emissions from construction activities and embodied in the materials used to build buildings can, in certain circumstances, constitute a majority of the 10-15-year GHG footprint of a building. Decarbonization of construction materials is a viable and scalable opportunity for project teams and can contribute to achievement of LEED certification. This webinar will cover basics of GHG accounting and foot printing of construction materials, and introduce the EC3 tool as a viable means for owners, designers and contractors to reduce GHG emissions in their building projects.

The cement and concrete industries are coming under more and more pressure to reduce the Global Warming Potential (GWP) for their products. The greatest contributor of CO2 and greenhouse gases in concrete is the portland cement. This presentation is a general review of the strategies being used today, and possibly in the future, by managers of cement plants to lower greenhouse gas emissions at manufacturing sites. These strategies include: improving plant efficiency and fuel utilization, using lower CO2 fuels, using more waste fuels, manufacturing more blended cements, and carbon capture, utilization, and storage.

Buildings alone account for 40% of the global greenhouse gas emissions. Two thirds of that total impact is from operational emissions while the remainder is from embodied emissions. Embodied emissions include all the emissions required to produce everything that goes into our buildings – the structure, enclosure and all the materials inside. Between now and 2050, half of the new construction emissions between now and then will be from embodied carbon. Therefore, the industry has begun to take action and groups like AIA 2030, Architecture 2030, SE2050, and USGBC have shifted their focus to include embodied carbon. In order to address this issue, we need to take steps to quantify and then reduce our impact. We can do this using a process called Whole Building Lifecycle Assessment (WBLCA). More and more project teams are using WBLCA as a design tool and are discussing decarbonizations strategies. As such, design professionals are actively and looking for low carbon material alternatives. Since cement is such a ubiquitous and carbon-intensive material, it is definitely at the center of these discussions. It’s important that the concrete industry be aware of what is being discussed in the market and how this will affect our industry in the future as this trend grows. This presentation will also look at examples of how this translates to the design documents, the specifications and ultimately the concrete mix designs.

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.

This course examines the use of multiple blends of cementitious materials for designing durable concrete structures. The use of ternary and quaternary blends to improve sustainability by designing for a long service life will be discussed.