A process to dissolve the mineral olivine in acid could provide a plentiful, energy-efficient material for carbon-negative cement
An abundant mineral called olivine can help make carbon-negative cement. This process could help tackle cement’s large carbon footprint – the material contributes about 8 per cent of global CO2 emissions.
Olivine is one of the main components of Earth’s mantle and reserves sit on every continent. “It’s one of the few minerals that is available at the gigatonne scale,” saysDozens of start-ups like Seratech are developing low-carbon methods to produce cement, such as supplementing with steel by-products or recycling the CO2 released in cement production. Most emissions occur when heating limestone to produce clinker, a binder in cement, along with burning fossil fuels to generate the heat.
The researchers extracted these compounds by dissolving powdered olivine in sulphuric acid. After separating the silica and magnesium sulphate, they bubbled CO2 through the magnesium slurry to form a mineral called nesquehonite. To scale up the process, Draper says a cement plant would use CO2 captured from an emissions source or from the air, rendering the entire process carbon negative. The leftover nesquehonite could be recycled into new construction materials like bricks.
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