Decarbonising the Built Environment by Permanent Carbon Dioxide Storage

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Low Carbon Materials (LCM) is an SME (and Earthshot 2022 finalist) based in the North East, which develops environmentally-friendly, low carbon products for the construction industry with the aim of helping to decarbonise the built environment. Our flagship product - OSTO - is a carbon-negative aggregate for concrete blockwork which is produced using a combination of waste products. OSTO can be added to concrete as a partial replacement for commonly-used, carbon-intensive lightweight aggregates. The negative carbon footprint for OSTO comes from (i) CO2 sequestration via carbonation - the aggregate itself permanently captures CO2 as it cures (ii) avoided CO2 emissions - the waste we utilise would otherwise be incinerated, releasing a significant volume of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The carbonation of OSTO is a passive process whereby environmental CO2 is absorbed from the atmosphere. Carbonation is a process, which is inherent in all concrete and is beneficial to the environment, but passive carbonation occurs very slowly and is far from optimal.At LCM we believe that there is scope to significantly enhance and accelerate this process and the aim of this project is to explore new, optimised and scalable approaches for the carbonation of OSTO. Any method which enables a greater extent of carbonation will increase the amount of CO2 permanently removed from the atmosphere within the aggregate.