Reducing CO2 emissions with climate-positive building materials

Michael Prokein (left) and Jannick Armenat from Ruhrstoffbauwerke at the pre-industrial plant for hardening building materials and CO2 storage.
(c) Fraunhofer UMSICHT

Sustainable and affordable building materials are therefore more in demand than ever. This is where the “ZEROES” project comes in: The project partners Betonwerk Büscher, Rohstoffbauwerke and project management Fraunhofer UMSICHT are pursuing the goal of reducing CO2 emissions in the production of mineral building materials. A central approach is the use of carbonates as binders or fillers in concrete and sand-lime bricks. The project partners met on July 3, 2024 for the official kick-off at Fraunhofer UMSICHT in Oberhausen.

One of the main reasons for the high CO2 emissions in the construction industry is the energy-intensive production of mineral binders. Every year, around 40 billion tons of sand and gravel are used worldwide to produce mineral building materials. The most commonly used binder here is cement, which is the most widely used building material worldwide for flowable concrete – indispensable for foundations and ceilings in residential construction.

In the “ZEROES” project, the project partners are pursuing the goal of using carbonates as binders or fillers in concrete and sand-lime bricks. Carbonisates are carbon-rich materials that are produced through the thermochemical conversion of biomass. When they are bound and stored in building materials, no CO2 is released into the atmosphere, which means that emissions from energy-intensive production can be offset at the same time. Another key requirement of the project is that all the mineral materials required must be obtained from recycled construction waste.

Strengthening NRW as an industrial location in the environmental sector

In order to compensate for CO2 emissions, particularly from unavoidable calcination in the sand-lime brick industry, the researchers in the “ZEROES” project are investigating not only the use of carbonates but also the direct incorporation of CO2 into sand-lime bricks during their production as part of a second research approach.

The ZEROES project has significant potential to reduce the currently high CO2 emissions in the energy-intensive production of building materials and at the same time provide sustainable building materials for climate-positive construction. “With the holistic and industry-related approach, we are bundling our expertise in the areas of building material production, carbonisates, residual material use and material CO2 use – in particular mineralization – in the “ZEROES” project, which can enormously strengthen NRW as an industrial location in the environmental economy,” explains project manager Dr. Michael Prokein from Fraunhofer UMSICHT.

Weitere Informationen:

https://www.umsicht.fraunhofer.de/en/carbonmanagement.html (Focus topic Carbon Management)

https://www.umsicht.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/2024/zeroes.html

Media Contact

Dipl.-Chem. Iris Kumpmann Abteilung Kommunikation
Fraunhofer-Institut für Umwelt-, Sicherheits- und Energietechnik UMSICHT

All latest news from the category: Ecology, The Environment and Conservation

This complex theme deals primarily with interactions between organisms and the environmental factors that impact them, but to a greater extent between individual inanimate environmental factors.

innovations-report offers informative reports and articles on topics such as climate protection, landscape conservation, ecological systems, wildlife and nature parks and ecosystem efficiency and balance.

Back to home

Comments (0)

Write a comment

Newest articles

First-of-its-kind study uses remote sensing to monitor plastic debris in rivers and lakes

Remote sensing creates a cost-effective solution to monitoring plastic pollution. A first-of-its-kind study from researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities shows how remote sensing can help monitor and…

Laser-based artificial neuron mimics nerve cell functions at lightning speed

With a processing speed a billion times faster than nature, chip-based laser neuron could help advance AI tasks such as pattern recognition and sequence prediction. Researchers have developed a laser-based…

Optimising the processing of plastic waste

Just one look in the yellow bin reveals a colourful jumble of different types of plastic. However, the purer and more uniform plastic waste is, the easier it is to…