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3D Printing Transforms Carbon Dioxide Into Sustainable Concrete Material

At UCLA (University of Los Angeles) researchers are working on a new method to transform carbon dioxide into a printable material which is similar to concrete.

Around 5 percent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions come from the production of concrete. This fact has brought the researches to their innovative idea: Instead of blowing carbon dioxide into the air they want to reuse it and build a material similar to concrete out of it. With their new approach they want to reuse carbon dioxide as a valuable resource and save our climate. The name of the project is CO2NCRETE (a combination of carbon dioxide and concrete).

Although the project had only been launched recently, the team has already demonstrated a working example of their technology. They had shown that it is possible to print something out of carbon dioxide. But the biggest challenge will be to show the industry that the technology can work economically and could be a real alternative to the production of common concrete. Today, there are different printers which have the abilitiy to print concrete, for example the NEXT or the WASP.

Anyway, the researchers are working under high pressure on their project:

 This technology could change the economic incentives associated with these power plants in their operations and turn the smokestack flue gas into a resource countries can use, to build up their cities, extend their road systems. It takes what was a problem and turns it into a benefit in products and services that are going to be very much needed and valued in places like India and China.


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