CO2-Cured Concrete Performs Better Than Traditional Ordinary Portland Cement-Based Concrete

Engineers from Purdue University reported that carbon dioxide (CO₂)-cured concrete performed comparably or better than traditional ordinary Portland Cement-based concrete for resistance to cold weather and exposure to extreme conditions during presentations to the American Concrete Institute (ACI) Fall 2014 Convention taking place this week in Washington, DC.

Using the same raw materials and existing equipment as traditional concretes, the patented processes of Solidia Technologies^® under investigation by the team of researchers starts with a sustainable cement, cures concrete with CO₂ instead of water, reduces carbon emissions up to 70 percent, and recycles 60 to 100 percent of the water used in production.

“On multiple indicators, our findings underscore comparable or favorable performance of the calcium silicate-based carbonated concrete under severe conditions,” said Purdue University Professor of Civil Engineering Jan Olek, Ph.D., P.E., who co-directs the ongoing research with Purdue Professor Jason Weiss, Ph.D. The Purdue-Solidia team is conducting long-term investigations exploring “Failure Mechanisms in Concrete: A Comparative Study of the Ordinary Portland Cement and Solidia Cement™ Concretes.”

Presenting findings of “Freeze-Thaw and Scaling Resistance of Calcium Silicate-based Carbonated Concretes,” Purdue Research Assistant HyunGu Jeong reported that the investigators examined the durability of Solidia Cement-based concrete and traditional OPC-based concretes under various conditions, including exposure to freezing and thawing (F/T) cycles and scaling in the presence of four percent CaCl₂ solution. “The Solidia Concrete™ that has been tested performed better (or similar to) OPC concrete specimens with 20 percent fly ash in terms of scaling and F/T resistances,” said Jeong.

Presenting findings of “An Experimental Investigation of the Selected Properties of Calcium Silicate-Based Carbonated Concrete (CSCC) Systems,” Purdue Research Assistant Warda Ashraf reported that investigators identified the microstructural phases of the CSCC System and studied mechanical properties. They found that the mechanical properties of CSCC System were comparable with the conventional OPC system, and that, under the same exposure condition, OPC pavers showed higher efflorescence than the CSCC pavers.

Another Purdue Ph.D. student, Raikhan Tokpatayeva, also working on the project won the American Ceramic Society Best Student Poster Award during the meeting held at Tennessee Technological University in July 2014. The investigative team includes researchers from Solidia Technologies, including Director of R&D Vahit Atakan, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist Jitendra Jain, Ph.D., and Research Scientist Deepak Ravikumar, as well as Purdue Professor Emeritus Sidney Diamond, Ph.D.