Skip to content
Search

Preventing global warming by tackling concrete CO2 emissions

The University of Bradford are exploring the use of alternative materials in concrete to reduce the CO2 emissions contributing to global warming.

Every ton of cement produced results in around 0.9 tons of CO2 emissions. According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development's Cement Sustainability Initiative (page 17), the cement industry produces 5% of global man-made CO2 emissions.

Engineers are exploring reduced CO2 emissions from concrete by using lower levels of cement and higher amounts of supplementary cementitious material. However, it is challenging, because the CO2 implications of these changes on the concrete buildings require longevity and maintenance have to be considered.  The University has two projects underway looking into this challenge:

  • SCORE (Smart Cities and Open Data Re-use) looks into the integration of data from the instrumented urban environment and concentrates on providing citizens with clear information on the state of the city's environmental parameters such as air quality.
  • RM4L (Resilient Materials for Life) concentrates on developing building materials and structures that can adapt to their environment and ensure long-term reliability over the life-cycle of the structure that they comprise.
Concrete slab close up

Between them, the projects are aiming to reduce CO2 emissions through these approaches:

  1. analysing data on the number of new builds, decommissioned assets, repair jobs, etc.;
  2. increasing the life cycle of assets by developing novel materials that can adapt to their environment by developing immunity to harmful actions, self-diagnosing the on-set of deterioration, and self-healing when damaged;
  3. developing smart materials and devices that can be used in the repair of existing assets with minimal impact on the environment.
  4. modelling of cities that integrates the emissions already built-in with materials and the predicted replacement and repair of structures with emissions that are monitored.

The University of Bradford is strongly committed to shaping a more sustainable future and to work towards a healthy environment and social wellbeing, whilst creating a thriving economy. Our commitment is  supported by industry and government (https://northsearegion.eu/score/score-partners/), and the outputs from these two projects will not only concentrate on the improved efficiency and quality of our roads, housing, sewers, etc., but will support the adoption of their findings by industry and government through their specialist support.

We would welcome working with industry and other researchers to enhance the impact we can have in this area.

Please get in touch with Dr Cristina Tuinea-Bobe, RKT Business Development Manager, Engineering and Informatics.