Tuesday 29 January 2019

Article Summary Draft 1

Article title: What Happened to Green Concrete?

Majcher (2015) stated that albeit the existence of green concrete and its benefits, the application is not common as it fails to garner support from the industry. The technology also did not advance over the years. Novacem, forefront of green cement in 2010, winded up in 2012 due to poor investment for its green concrete technology. While Calera another company, now focuses on commercialising their technology with fibre to make boards for toilet usage, as it is more lucrative than creating green concrete.

CarbonCure on the other hand, sells green cement that had been utilised by approximately 20 projects in the 2 years since it had started. The technology only helped decrease carbon footprint by 5% but more if the carbon used is captured by the plant itself. The production cannot be insitu, which is still under development. Solidia Technologies’ green cement is stronger and crack resistance, but is not advancing since 2008 even with supports from big companies like Lafarge. 

Nanoengineering can help reduce fracturing and cement usage as found by MIT’s Concrete Sustainability Hub. Meanwhile replacing portland cement with fly ash reduces water by half and is cured under chemical reaction, and assists in reducing landfill use.

While Majcher listed how the various companies develop their technologies and the benefits they brought, she failed to elaborate what are the factors that hindered the industry players from utilising the technologies.


Done by: Chun Siang, Jayce and Yuan Lin

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