Ecological cement: How plankton could make cement manufacturing greener
About 7 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are generated by the manufacturing of cement. To remedy this, scientists from the University of Colorado have come up with a surprising solution: plankton
Engineers in the US have developed a plankton-based cement. Engineers in the US have developed a plankton-based cement.
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Engineers in the US have developed a plankton-based cement. Guaranteed carbon-neutral, this production method could be an effective solution to reducing the significant ecological footprint of concrete, one of the world's most-used construction materials.
About 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions are generated by the manufacturing of cement, which is used to make concrete, one of the most widely used construction materials in the world. To remedy this, scientists from the University of Colorado have come up with a surprising solution: plankton.
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More specifically, they are using coccolithophorids, micro-algae with a very resistant mineral shell, which contains calcium carbonate. This material is precisely what could replace the main ingredient of cement, made of limestone and clay and heated at very high temperatures to harden.
"Global cement production accounts for 7% of annual greenhouse gas emissions in large part through the burning of quarried limestone," explains researcher Wil Srubar, associate professor in civil, environmental and architectural engineering at the Universtiy of Colorado, and lead principal investigator on the project.
The research team found that replacing quarried limestone with a biologically-grown plankton-based alternative would allow for carbon-neutral manufacturing of portland cement, the most common type of cement. In fact, the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere during the manufacturing process would be equal to the amount previously captured by the coccolithophorids.
