A private-public partnership has paved a section of Minnesota road with an experimental low-carbon concrete mixture that resulted in greater strength and lesser cement use, saving money and carbon.

Concrete and its most important ingredient, cement, is one of the most carbon-intensive industries on Earth because it’s used so often in construction. It has virtually no parallels for the ease of use, versatility, and structural properties, but emits about 0.6 tons of carbon per 1 ton of cement mixture produced according to Imperial College London.

US firm Carbon Upcycling Technologies, in collaboration with the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) has successfully completed a three-year study on the use of the company’s low-carbon cement in highways.

The results highlight Carbon Upcycling’s ability to be a drop-in solution for reducing carbon-intensive cement in concrete, while saving money and making stronger roads.

The work in the study was carried out by Sutter Engineering and sponsored by the National Road Research Alliance (NRRA). It rigorously tested 16 unique concrete mixtures in real-world conditions on an active Minnesota highway […]