Carbon Upcycling Participates in First-of-a-Kind Department of Transportation Low-Carbon Concrete Demonstration Project
Albertville, MN, USA – August 3, 2022 – Carbon Upcycling, a waste and carbon utilization company commercializing a portfolio of novel, circular and CO2-embedded materials, has completed its installation in a first-of-a-kind demonstration project led by the National Road Research Alliance (NRRA) and managed by Larry Sutter, principal engineer at Sutter Engineering LLC. The NRRA-sponsored project has selected an active section of highway road along Interstate-94 to trial 14 unique concrete mixtures, including Carbon Upcycling. The section of highway is located at the Minnesota Road Research Facility (MnRoad) in Albertville, Minnesota, United States.
The 14 selected mixture designs are using a variety of methods to decarbonize concrete, including the utilization of supplementary cementitious materials, portland limestone cement (PLC), alternative supplementary cementitious materials, alternative cement, and liquid carbon dioxide, all for the purpose of reducing the lifecycle carbon footprint of concrete. Each mixture is being compared to a conventional concrete mixture design prepared using PLC and fly ash.
For this project, Carbon Upcycling supplied concrete mixed with its CO2-Enhanced Fly Ash, demonstrating the double-digit reductions in total cementitious material–an industry leading achievement for low-carbon concrete.
“This demonstration project is intended to give companies an opportunity to put forward the most sustainable concrete mixtures their technologies and materials can achieve, without sacrificing performance,” said Larry Sutter, the demonstration’s technical manager. “Carbon Upcycling has submitted a very impressive mixture design. Their material embeds co2 in the concrete, thereby accomplishing carbon sequestration. Additionally, their process improves the SCM reactivity, allowing for significant reductions in the portland cement used. Their mixture design accomplished the highest reduction in total cementitious materials of all mixture designs submitted. The data collected from this project will be critically informative to the cement and concrete industry and will facilitate implementation of these new materials as the industry works to reach its ambitious 2030 CO2 reduction targets.”
“Carbon Upcycling is excited and grateful for the opportunity to demonstrate our high-performance CO2-embedded SCMs in a broad and standardized testing program organized by the NRRA. By offering an SCM that directly sequesters CO2 and requires no process heat, and only an electric energy source to produce, Carbon Upcycling is confident of the life cycle CO2 emission reductions its technology can offer the building materials industry” said Apoorv Sinha, the Cofounder and CEO of Carbon Upcycling. “Carbon Upcycling aspires to be the most impactful carbontech company of this decade. Third-party verified data like this further reinforces the industry’s confidence in our solution, and we will be announcing our first commercial-scale projects with engaged partners later this year.”
“This demonstration project is aligned with Carbon Upcycling’s core values of transparency, quality data-collection, and meaningful carbon reductions,” says Natalie Giglio, the Senior Business Development Associate at Carbon Upcycling. “It is support from industry and third-party verified data like this that proves that low-carbon concrete is a viable solution that will contrive to the future circular economy”
The NRRA and Mnroad have committed to a 3-year rigorous testing and data collection program to assess the different mixture designs, and the data will become publicly available to help inform future infrastructure procurement and material selection.
The placement of Carbon Upcycling’s test cell was completed on July 28, 2022. Performance data from the project will be provided at a future date. For project inquiries, please contact Natalie Giglio, natalie@carbonupcycling.com.
About Carbon Upcycling Technologies
Carbon Upcycling is a waste and carbon utilization company unlocking a new frontier of circular materials. We combine CO2 with local industrial byproducts and natural materials to improve performance of cement and plastics, some of the most widely used materials on the planet. Learn more about our global solution at carbonupcycling.com.
About Sutter Engineering LLC
Sutter Engineering LLC specializes in providing technical support to companies bringing new products and technologies into the concrete construction business. The major focus of the firm is to help the cement and concrete industry attain carbon neutrality by the year 2035. Specific tasks include developing new specifications and testing standards and working to integrate products into existing specifications and testing standards.
Media Contact
Natalie Giglio