BGE has been hitting the pavement hard in recent weeks serving our customers and exploring opportunities, as a result, the blog has fallen a bit too silent. We won’t let that become a habit (well, serving customers and exploring opportunities are habits we intend to keep). Nevertheless, interesting news has not rested!
Through an article on tonic today, we found a story on The Guardian about “Liquid Granite”, a so called carbon neutral cement substitute developed by Prof Pal Mangat of Sheffield Hallam University. As is normal, details are sketchy. Professor Mangat says only that Liquid Granite is made from an inorganic powder, 30-70% of which is recycled industrial waste materials. Using the same aggregates as normal concrete, it could be used anywhere cement is but with a fraction of the carbon footprint.
The same article points to an earlier story we have mentioned previously about a carbon negative cement developed by Novacem which, in theory, absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere at a greater fraction than is released during manufacture. The tonic article also mentions our favorite press release pixie dust company, Calera, who manages to stay in the news despite no real signs of a marketable product yet (and much scientific skepticism).
Finally (phew) Recycling Product News has a feature not cement specific, but about how much time and effort is being put into research for Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) without considering what to do with all that stored CO2. Many companies are sprouting up around methods to turn captured CO2 into valuable products such as formic acid, algae biofuel, methanol, etc. All very real processes with very real commercial results.
BGE has the skills and knowledge required to integrate CCS and CO2 conversion technologies into cement production facilities. Contact us to discuss the possibilities. The future is now.