Nano-concrete could cut CO2 emissions
While government leaders argue about the practicality of reducing world emissions of carbon dioxide, scientists and engineers are seeking ways to make it happen.
One group of engineers at MIT decided to focus its work on the nanostructure of concrete, the world’s most widely used material. The production of cement, the primary component of concrete, accounts for 5 to 10 percent of the world’s total carbon dioxide emissions; the process is an important contributor to global warming.
In the January issue of the Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, the team reports that the source of concrete’s strength and durability lies in the organization of its nanoparticles. The discovery could one day lead to a major reduction in carbon dioxide emissions during manufacturing.
“If everything depends on the organizational structure of the nanoparticles that make up concrete, rather than on the material itself, we can conceivably replace it with a material that has concrete’s other characteristics-strength, durability, mass availability and low cost-but does not release so much CO2 into the atmosphere during manufacture,” said Franz-Josef Ulm, the Esther and Harold E. Edgerton Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering.
The work also shows that the study of very common materials at the nano scale has great potential for improving materials in ways we might not have conceived.
Cement is manufactured at the rate of 2.35 billion tons per year, enough to produce 1 cubic meter of concrete for every person in the world. If engineers can reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the world’s cement manufacturing by even 10 percent, that would accomplish one-fifth of the Kyoto Protocol goal of a 5.2 percent reduction in total carbon dioxide emissions.
source: eurekalert.org