6/6/2014 Greener Concrete Through Low-Tech and Hi-Tech Methods

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Concrete is one of the most widely
used construction materials
worldwide. Its essential for
countless infrastructure projects,
from buildings to bridges to streets.

Greener Concrete Through Low-
Tech and Hi-Tech Methods
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6/6/2014 Greener Concrete Through Low-Tech and Hi-Tech Methods
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Wi l l
Concrete
Carbon
Capture
Revol uti oni s
e Green
Bui l di ng?
Adel ai de
Engi neers
Devel op
Bomb-Proof
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favorites Its manufacture is also a huge source of CO2
emissions about 5 per cent of the total
emissions worldwide and requires large-
scale mining operations to obtain the raw
materials. Typically, concrete is made of
Portland cement, water, and aggregates.
Changes to the common mixture offer the
potential to reduce the amount of cement and
aggregate needed, and to offset the
production of CO2.
Bio-crete and hempcrete
Bio-crete and hempcrete are both similar to
traditional concrete, but replace the
aggregates with plant fibre such as hemp
fibre or rice husks, and use lime in place of
Portland cement. The resulting material lacks
concretes compressive strength and so
requires structural framing.
Hemp is a versatile plant that can be made
into hempcrete, sheet goods like wallboard,
flooring, and fibrous insulation. Hemps
advantages include insulating value of about
about R-3.5 per 25 millimetres of thickness,
moisture permeability, and fast rate of
growth, sequestering carbon with low inputs
of water and pesticides.
Klara Marosszeky has been active as a
licensed hemp researcher, as a hemp grower,
and with her company, the Australian Hemp
Masonry Company, located in Lismore, New
South Wales, who conducted a workshop
showing hemp masonry construction.

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A UK firm, Lime Technology, has developed
methods to cast its hempcrete mixture on
site around structural framing, as well as
creating pre-cast panels. The company says
building with its hempcrete mixture, which it
calls Tradical Hemcrete, drastically reduces
the amount of carbon dioxide emitted
compared to the construction of a
conventional building.
The companys web site says the hempcrete
mixture locks up around 40kg of carbon
dioxide for every m2 of wall, whereas a
typical brick and block cavity wall will create
in its manufacture around 100kg of CO2 per
m2 of wall.
Overall, the company says, the mixture can
reduce the embodied CO2 emitted in a
homes construction by up to 40 per cent.
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Another hemp advocate, Hempitecture,
started a crowdfunding campaign aimed at
raising $25,000 to build the only non-
residential hemp structure in the US.
Matthew Mead and Tyler Mauri, the executive
team at Hempitecture, aim to build an
educational facility, accessible to the public,
that will demonstrate the strengths of hemp
as a building material.
Their Kickstarter page states, This material
is non-toxic, carbon-negative, energy-
efficient, adding up to what is quite possibly
the most sustainable building material on the
planet. This material is then cast around
structural framing, creating a naturally
breathable wall system.
Greening concrete with CO2 and
industrial waste
Manufacturing cement, the glue that
typically holds concrete together, produces
huge amounts of carbon dioxide, which ends
up being released into the atmosphere.
CarbonCure, a company based in Nova
6/6/2014 Greener Concrete Through Low-Tech and Hi-Tech Methods
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Scotia, Canada, has developed a process
that sequesters CO2 by injecting it back into
the curing concrete, converting the gaseous
CO2 into limestone.
The process, the company says, actually
increases the strength of the concrete itself,
enabling the use of less concrete overall. In
addition, use of their products gives users
LEED credits for Recycled Content, Regional
Materials, Innovation in Design, Regional
Priority, and Carbon Impact.
The US Environmental Protection Agency
recently approved fly ash for use in concrete.
Fly ash, a waste product from coal-fired
power plants, is normally sent to a landfill as
waste. When used to replace some of the
Portland cement in concrete, the EPA found
that fly ash could be safe and
environmentally sound, decreasing waste,
decreasing use of virgin resources, and
decreasing incidence of CO2 emissions. US
Concrete, a concrete manufacturer, states
that fly ash offers several benefits over
standard cement mixes, including improved
workability and pumpability.
Blast furnace slag, another industrial waste
product, can also be added to concrete.
Using slag to replace some cement reduces
the overall embodied energy, as slag requires
90 per cent less energy to produce. Use of
slag also offsets the CO2 emissions of
cement production by 42 to 46 per cent.
Published on 19 May 2014
Contribut
or:
Steve
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Tony Gray says:
May 20, 2014 at 9:33 am
Geolyse followers may be interested
in this Hemp based
concrete..Has lots of merits. Not a
bad color either.
Edward Dodge says:
6/6/2014 Greener Concrete Through Low-Tech and Hi-Tech Methods
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May 30, 2014 at 1:58 am
Coal fly ash has been used in
concrete for decades. There is
nothing new about it, though the EPA
is pushing to increase its use. Fly ash
is a proven replacement for portland
cement and makes big improvements
in overall carbon emissions for
concrete prodcution.
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