Corrected 21/4/10 4.50pm CET
(UK) -- Concrete is the second most used material in the world after water. Researchers at the English University of Bath and Scotland’s University of Dundee are working with Indian experts to develop “green” cement that uses waste materials.
The project, a part of the five-year United Kingdom-India Education and Research Initiative, aims to reduce the carbon footprint of cement, which is about 5 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions.
The researchers are experimenting with Portland cement, which is a major ingredient of concrete.
The process of making Portland cement involves heating limestone with clay at high temperatures, which produces approximately one metric ton of carbon dioxide for every metric ton of cement made.
By replacing the ingredients of Portland cement with waste materials, the researchers hope to reduce cement’s carbon footprint. The researchers are using waste materials such as fly ash acquired from burning coal, slag from iron works and even rice husks.
“Concrete is the second most used material in the world after water, and so reducing the carbon dioxide emissions produced by it could make a real difference to climate change,” said Dr. Kevin Paine, from the University of Bath’s Architecture and Civil Engineering Department.
Dr. Paine, along with Dr. Moray Newlands and Professor Ravinder Dhir from the concrete technology unit of Dundee University, went to the research initiative’s recent meeting in Punjab, India, to present their latest study and brainstorm on new types of cement that have a smaller carbon impact.
“This collaboration with Indian research institutes is developing the new technologies in the countries where it’s most needed,” said Dr. Paine, who pointed out India’s fast developing infrastructure industry and its status as the second largest cement producer in the world after China.
He also emphasized that there is no single perfect replacement for Portland cement and they are using locally available materials, such as rice husks in India and fly ash in the United Kingdom.
Dr. Paine was part of the Dundee’s concrete technology unit of before he moved to Bath in 2007. But he continues to work with colleagues at Dundee to test the durability of concrete with different cements under various environmental conditions.
Meanwhile, Dr. Newlands believes that collaboration between institutions is the only way to reach their goals and resolve the problem of infrastructure development in India and Britain.
“We have to look at the environmental challenges collectively to make a meaningful impact,” said Dr. Newlands.
By: Honey Garcia
Source: www.ecoseed.org