Carbonaide, a spin-off from Finnish state-owned research organisation VTT, has secured €1.8m (£1.6m) seed funding from concrete producer Lakan Betoni and power generator Vantaa Energy supplemented with public loans and contributions from other investors and concrete companies.
The company will use the money build an automated production line using new CO2 curing technology at a precast concrete factory in Hollola, Finland. Carbonaide hopes the factory-scale pilot unit will be able to mineralise up to five tonnes of CO2 per day and increase production of its carbon-negative concrete products 100-fold.
Carbonaide’s production technique uses a carbonation method that binds carbon dioxide into precast concrete using an automated system at atmospheric pressure. The technology is said to be able to halve the CO2 emissions of traditional Portland cement concrete by reducing the required cement content and mineralising CO2 into concrete.
When industrial side streams, such as industry slags, bio-ash and green liquor dregs from paper production are used in the binding process instead of normal cement, the result is concrete with a negative carbon footprint, claims Carbonaide. In the process, CO2 is permanently stored and removed from the carbon cycle.
“We have demonstrated in the pilot unit that our technology is capable of reducing the CO2 emissions of conventional concrete by 45%,” said Tapio Vehmas, chief executive of Carbonaide.
“Last autumn, we demonstrated lowering our products’ carbon footprint to -60 kg/m3 by replacing Portland cement with slag. Our first pilot unit had limited capacity, so we’re grateful to our investors for the chance to upscale our technology to a factory-sized pilot and demonstrate the technology full-scale.
“Our goal at Carbonaide is to create a more sustainable future with cutting-edge tech that doesn’t just reduce the carbon emissions of construction materials like concrete, but that traps more CO2 than they emit throughout their lifetime. It is very natural that the constructed environment becomes a CO2 sink as it is the largest volume of man-made material,” added Vehmas.
With governments introducing carbon taxes, emission trading mechanisms and renewable energy targets, and consumers willing to pay a premium for low-carbon products, material producers and construction companies are increasingly drawn to such innovations, said Juho Hiltunen, chief executive of Lakan Betoni.
“As new innovations take ground, the demand for low-carbon products will likely increase. New technologies, such as Carbonaide, provide the means for the industrial-scale production of affordable low-carbon products,” said Hiltunen. “We’re happy to support Carbonaide scale up its production and realise the world’s first CO2 curing integration to a fully automated precast concrete production line,”
Matti Wallin, business director at Vantaa Energy, added: “Avoiding carbon dioxide emissions should always be the primary mechanism to foster biodiversity. However, carbon capture and permanent storage of unavoidable CO2 emissions are needed to enable a sustainable carbon cycle, for example in the waste-to-energy sector.
“Carbonaide technology is an excellent example of how to both reduce and utilise existing CO2 in new products and permanently store carbon from the cycle," he added.
Carbonaide now plans to open 10 production lines for carbon-negative concrete in the Nordic countries by 2026. If successful, by 2050 these plants could bind up to 500 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, the equivalent of almost 20% of the concrete market’s carbon emissions.
The project has been part of VTT LaunchPad, a science-based spin-off incubator, where VTT researchers and technology are brought together with entrepreneurs and investors to drive industrial innovation.
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