Carbon Upcycling joins low-carbon concrete schedule at MnRoad demonstration

Sources: Carbon Upcycling, Calgary; CP staff

Carbon Upcycling has supplied its CO2-Enhanced Fly Ash as part of a National Road Research Alliance (NRRA) placement of 14 concrete pavement mixtures at the Minnesota Road Research Facility (MnRoad), located along Interstate 94 north of the Twin Cities. Along with the Carbon Upcycling product, the mixtures use a variety of materials to lower portland cement requirements and with an eye to decarbonizing finished pavement sections: Conventional and alternative supplementary cementitious materials, portland-limestone cement (PLC), and liquid carbon dioxide. Each is being compared to a conventional concrete designed with PLC and fly ash.

MnRoad and NRRA representatives plan a three-year rigorous testing and data collection program to assess performance of the 14 mixtures. They will make their findings on low-carbon concrete publicly available to help inform future infrastructure procurement and material selection.
July 2022 ARRA photo: Carbon Upcycling Technologies

“This project is intended to give companies an opportunity to put forward the most sustainable concrete mixtures their technologies and materials can achieve, without sacrificing performance,” says Larry Sutter, demonstration technical manager and principal of Sutter Engineering LLC in Houghton, Mich. “Carbon Upcycling has submitted a very impressive mixture design. Their material embeds CO2 in the concrete, thereby accomplishing carbon sequestration. 

“Additionally, their process improves the SCM reactivity, allowing for significant reductions in the portland cement used. Their mixture design accomplished the highest reduction in total cementitious materials of all mixture designs submitted. The data collected from this project will be critically informative to the cement and concrete industry and facilitate implementation of these new materials as the industry works to reach its ambitious 2030 CO2 reduction targets.”

“By offering an SCM that directly sequesters CO2 and requires no process heat, and only an electric energy source to produce, Carbon Upcycling is confident of the life cycle CO2 emission reductions its technology can offer the building materials industry,” says CEO Apoorv Sinha. “Carbon Upcycling aspires to be the most impactful carbontech company of this decade. Third-party verified data like this further reinforces the industry’s confidence in our solution, and we will be announcing our first commercial-scale projects with engaged partners later this year.”

“This demonstration project is aligned with our core values of transparency, quality data-collection, and meaningful carbon reductions,” adds Carbon Upcycling Senior Business Development Associate Natalie Giglio. “It is support from industry and third-party verified data like this that proves that low-carbon concrete is a viable solution that will contrive to the future circular economy.”

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