(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Cement-making made less carbon intensive? [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-03-08 If there was a way to make manufacturing cement less carbon intensive than what it is presently (more on this in a moment), as long as such wasn’t cost-intensive (meaning cost-prohibitive), shouldn’t that avenue or every avenue for that matter be exploited to the hilt to make or at least help make this a reality? You would think so. I think so. Well, now maybe there is. A team at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass Amherst) has just been awarded $3 million in “Future Manufacturing Process” grant money provided by the National Science Foundation to explore ways of making cement manufacturing more environmentally friendly by making such less carbon-dioxide emitting. Distribution of the award, meanwhile, is to be carried out over a four-year period. Head researcher and UMass Amherst civil engineering professor Guoping Zhang and UMass Amherst assistant chemical engineering professor Peng Bai lay it out in a March 7, 2024 UMass Amherst press release. As Zhang explains: People estimate that generating 1 ton of cement will generate about 1 ton of CO2. As a result, cement manufacturing accounts for 8% of total anthropogenic CO2 emissions in 2018, which include fossil fuels, heating, food production,… We want to invert two processes. One is the traditional Portland cement manufacturing process to combat the CO2 emissions—even to store and use the CO2 in the next-generation cement. Regarding the other one, there is opportunity from the waste stream created from mining minerals that go into the manufacture of electric vehicles and in the area of battery storage to turn those “residues” into cement-making ingredients. It is helpful to understand that the energy input in the cement-making process is huge. Components of clay and limestone must be fired to 1,450° Celsius, according to press-release-presented information. The fired components are subsequently ground and pound into a powder consistency. Those heating and pulverization processes are themselves energy- and carbon-intensive. On this, Bai submits: You need to extract minerals from the ground to make a huge volume of these metals for wind and solar energy production and making batteries for energy storage so the demand is just going to increase over time. If we don’t use them, these mine tailings are just waste. At the same time, they contain ingredients that can be used for other processes. What ingredients? Calcium, iron, magnesium and silicon, according to other information presented in the release. Though still just a proposal, the idea here is that strong solids — in this instance known as nanoscale carbonate crystals or simply nano carbonates — can be formed as a result of the Ca, Fe and Mg reacting with CO2 deliberately removed from the atmosphere. Original stored-in-rock silicon oxide sheets and chains serving as a kind of “scaffolding,” are used, as I also understand it, meanwhile, to maintain, if you will, holding-cell structural integrity. Expectations are such that the resultant material will possess properties superior to that of regular Portland cement. I want to reiterate that this is a new method that is being proposed. Further, and as it stands, just a fraction of the overall process-released carbon dioxide amount gets reabsorbed, and this is during cement curing. This comes about through a process known as carbon mineralization or carbonation. Declares Bai: [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/3/8/2228322/-Cement-making-made-less-carbon-intensive?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/