LAND

Lighting up the planet consumes 15% of all electricity globally and the challenge has been to reduce the cost. Inspired by the workings of the humble firefly scientists have now significantly increased the efficiency of LEDs…

Cement production is a massive emitter of CO2; for every pound of limestone processed half   its weight ends up as CO2 emissions. CarbonCure Technologies has a solution to reduce the amount of cement needed by taking CO2 and adding it to the concrete mixture. This technology can hook into any cement plant and has the potential to reduce this industry’s emissions by 500 mega tons per year. That’s the equivalent to taking 100 million cars off the road.  

Concrete’s main componant, cement is responsible for 7% of global greenhouse emissions. However a new process uses CO2 and less cement to produce a stronger concrete, which traps CO2 forever.  

Solidia uses CO2 sucked-out of the air in its concrete manufacturing process. The concrete is  10 to 25% stronger than normal concrete and its water footprint in production is much smaller than traditional concrete.  

The Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences in the Netherlands are creating new cements with the waste and by-products from industrial industries. The geopolymer products are used to replace cement in concrete production and the result is comparable or better than tradition concrete. The next project…a bridge!

This pollution-eating concrete uses titanium dioxide in the mixture, which combines with sunlight to attract pollutants from combustion like nitric dioxide, carbon dioxide, sulphur oxide, etc from the air. When it rains the pollutants are washed-out and transformed into harmless mineral salts.  

New possibilities for formulating crack resistant concrete is on the horizon with micro organisms, which spring to life to create calcium carbonate to solidify the tiniest cracking.

Hempcrete, a hemp-lime composite ‘concrete’ regulates the temperature and humidity of buildings keeping them cooler or warmer. Flame resistant and as solid as a concrete brick.

New methods in concrete recycling and processing can enable high quality recycled concrete to be used as an alternative building material even in structural engineering, and that is a huge savings for the environment.