UW researchers create new low-carbon concrete with seaweed
SEATTLE - University of Washington researchers have created a new type of concrete that could cut concrete's carbon footprint.
Concrete is the second most used material by humans annually, behind water, but researchers have created seaweed-infused cement – a major component of concrete – that may emit less carbon dioxide than regular concrete.
What we know:
Cement is the source of nearly 10% of all CO2 emissions worldwide, but students at UW have been addressing this problem by creating a low-carbon concrete powder infused with seaweed.
One kilogram of cement will emit almost a kilogram of CO2 in return from fossil fuels used to heat the materials and calcination, a chemical reaction during the heating of raw materials like cement.
Seaweed can combat the emissions as a carbon sink – something that absorbs more carbon than it releases – and, when mixed with concrete and made into cement, has a 21% lower global warming potential while keeping the strength of regular cement, according to the UW study.
Researchers built and used a machine-learning model to shorten the time it would take to find an ideal formula for seaweed-infused concrete. What may have taken research teams months in the past to complete, took the UW team 28 days.
Moving forward, researchers will continue to study and test how the infusion of seaweed may affect cement strength and structure, and will use machine learning to expedite the process again.
The project and research paper were co-authored by Meng-Yen Lin, a UW materials science and engineering doctoral student, Paul Grandgeorge, a former UW materials science and engineering postdoctoral researcher, and Kristen Severson, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research. The project was funded by Microsoft Research.
Learn more about the research project here.
The Source: Information in this article is from a University of Washington news release.
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