Addressing the American Concrete Institute Fall Convention in Washington, D.C., Purdue University engineers report that carbon dioxide-cured concrete performs comparably or better than traditional portland cement product for resistance to cold weather and exposure to extreme conditions.
Using the same raw materials and existing equipment as traditional concretes, the patented processes of Solidia Technologies under investigation by the team of researchers at the Indiana school starts with a sustainable cement, cures concrete with CO2 instead of water, reduces carbon emissions up to 70 percent, and recycles 60 to 100 percent of the water used in production. “On multiple indicators, our findings underscore comparable or favorable performance of the calcium silicate-based carbonated concrete under severe conditions,” says Purdue Professor of Civil Engineering Jan Olek, Ph.D., P.E., who co-directs the ongoing research with Professor Jason Weiss, Ph.D.
The Purdue-Solidia team is conducting long-term investigations exploring “Failure Mechanisms in Concrete: A Comparative Study of the Ordinary Portland Cement and Solidia Cement Concretes.” Presenting findings of “Freeze-Thaw and Scaling Resistance of Calcium Silicate-based Carbonated Concretes,” Purdue Research Assistant HyunGu Jeong reports that the investigators examined the durability of Solidia Cement-based concrete and conventional concretes under various conditions, including exposure to freeze-thaw cycles and scaling in the presence of 4 percent CaCl2 solution. “The Solidia Concrete performed better (or similar to) ordinary portland cement concrete specimens with 20 percent fly ash in terms of scaling and F/T resistances,” says Jeong.
Presenting findings of “An Experimental Investigation of the Selected Properties of Calcium Silicate-Based Carbonated Concrete (CSCC) Systems,” Purdue Research Assistant Warda Ashraf reported that investigators identified the CSCC microstructural phases and studied mechanical properties. They found the latter comparable to those of conventional concrete.