Energy Efficient and Carbon Sequestering Lightweight CMU Walls

Two of today’s major focus areas in the design community are reducing the amount of energy (usually in the form of fossil fuel to heat, cool and operate buildings) and reducing the embodied carbon in building materials. To help meet the moment, the concrete products industry has two readily available and affordable solutions that can be used to address both…

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AASHTO M194 performance opens CarbonCure specs to new avenues

Testing of CarbonCure Technologies’ carbon dioxide injection method for cement optimization and imparting strength development in ready mixed concrete has proved compliant with American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials M194, Standard Specification for Chemical Admixtures for Concrete. Verification by SGS TEC Services provides state transportation agencies, engineers and contractors with confidence to integrate the CarbonCure process into their…

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CarbonCure CO2 injection process meets AASHTO M194 admixtures standard

Sources: CarbonCure Technologies, Halifax, N.S.; CP staff  Testing of CarbonCure Technologies’ carbon dioxide injection method for cement optimization and imparting strength development in ready mixed concrete has proved compliant with American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials M194, Standard Specification for Chemical Admixtures for Concrete. Verification by SGS TEC Services provides state transportation agencies, engineers and contractors with confidence…

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Patio Drummond opens order book for CarbiCrete block

Sources: CarbiCrete, Montreal; CP stafff CarbiCrete, developer of a process where steel slag and carbon dioxide replace portland cement and steam in concrete masonry unit mixes and curing, has taken a critical step in commercialization thanks to its charter North American producer, Quebec-based Patio Drummond. After extensive testing, the concrete hardscapes producer has begun selling CarbiCrete block directly from its…

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Lafarge Canada sets PozGlass on commercialization pathway

Under a new purchase agreement, Lafarge Canada Inc. will assume the entire run of PozGlass 100G ground glass pozzolan—upward of 3,500 metric tons—from a pilot British Columbia facility that developer Progressive Planet has scheduled for 2024 start up. PozGlass 100G technology centers on a reactor engineered to transform the sodium in finely ground, post-consumer glass to sodium carbonate, formed with…

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Block-Lite, CarbonBuilt prepare for carbon dioxide-to-concrete first

The 4 Corners Carbon Coalition has awarded $150,000 to Arizona concrete masonry producer Block-Lite, plus California partners CarbonBuilt of Los Angeles and Aircapture LLC of Berkeley, to develop the world’s first fully-integrated direct air capture (DAC)-to-concrete assembly. Based at the producer’s Flagstaff plant, the project has the potential to yield market rate block exhibiting 70 percent lower embodied carbon versus…

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MIT CSHub reviews carbon uptake mechanisms in concrete

Sources: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Concrete Sustainability Hub, Cambridge; CP staff The process by which cement-based products sequester carbon dioxide is key to understanding the life cycle impacts of the world’s most widely subscribed building material. In a three-point question & answer sequence, MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub Deputy Director Hessam AzariJafari describes how CO2 uptake is a key lever in the…

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Glenwood Mason Supply taps Big Apple towers’ CO2 for CarbonCure process

Sources: Glenwood Property Management, CarbonQuest, New York City; CP staff Brooklyn-based Glenwood Mason Supply will source CarbonQuest “Sustainable CO,” processed from New York City apartment building mechanical flue exhaust, for concrete masonry unit (CMU) production incorporating CarbonCure Technologies’ carbon dioxide mineralizing method. CarbonQuest engineers collection and separation assemblies to purify and liquify CO2 from commercial building mechanicals. Stored in high pressure,…

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Federal agencies trigger a third flourish for Environmental Product Declarations

Our coverage of Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) for ready mixed and manufactured concrete dates to 2013. The record of producers and their national associations responding to market signals calling for such documents continues to be exemplary.  This past month saw a third turning point in EPDs’ evolution from a target of green building practitioners, to data files for the Embodied…

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NCMA research quantifies CMUs’ carbon dioxide-sequestering capacity

Sources: National Concrete Masonry Association, Herndon, Va.; CP staff National Concrete Masonry Association technicians are collecting block from a cross section of producer members for a two-year investigation measuring specimens’ carbon dioxide sequestration characteristics. Findings have the potential to arm the industry with critical CO2 uptake data plus delineate the sequestration rates and net volumes of dry cast versus conventional precast…

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