Storing Co₂ in Built Infrastructure: Co₂ Carbonation of Precast Concrete Products

Technical Report · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1910586· OSTI ID:1910586

Ellis, Brian R. ^[1]; Li, Victor C. ^[2]; Skerlos, Steven J. ^[2]; Zhang, Duo ^[2]; Hu, Wei-Hsiu ^[2]; Lim, Tae ^[2]; Wu, Haoliang ^[2]; Adeoye, Jubilee ^[2]; Neves Jr., Alex ^[2]

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1. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States); University of Michigan
2. Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)

The overall objective of the proposed study was to advance the technical understanding of CO₂ incorporation into novel cementitious materials for the development of high value products that provide a net reduction in carbon emissions. This project combined two primary phases of research that addressed technical barriers related to (i) optimizing CO₂ storage capability of cementitious materials, (ii) evaluating and enhancing physical properties of novel carbonated materials, and (iii) assessing the reductions in life cycle CO₂ emissions attributed to CO₂ carbonation of precast cementitious materials. Engineered cementitious composites (ECC) are a class of highly ductile concrete composites that have been shown to be very durable when used in the built environment. CO₂ carbonation of ECC was examined in this study and it was found that precast ECC specimens could sequester up to 35% CO₂ by cement mass after 24 hours of curing at a CO₂ pressure of 0.5 MPa and 23°C and had a strain capacity of 3%. Carbonation conditions were optimized at the bench-scale and then utilized to create full-scale CO₂-cured ECC railroad ties that were field tested on a train track. Rail ties were selected for this initial assessment of CO₂ storage in precast concrete materials due to the large market for concrete ties in the railroad industry. Although the full-scale rail ties passed all of the required American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association qualifying mechanical tests, on-track testing of the CO₂-cured ECC rail ties was unsuccessful due to fiber alignment in the ECC the during the rail tie casting process which prevented the material from achieving the expected level of strain capacity. This result highlights the challenge in scaling up bench-scale processes to full-scale product manufacturing and requires additional investigation into the casting process of large-scale infrastructure elements using ECC combined with carbonation curing. Life cycle assessment of a CO₂-cured ECC rail tie versus a traditional concrete rail tie indicates that the ECC tie can have lifecycle carbon savings of between 11% and 51% depending on how much longer its useful lifetime is compared to traditional concrete rail ties. Both carbon and cost savings are driven by a reduction in the need to replace broken rail ties, so the key factor is the extent to which a CO₂-cured ECC rail tie will have increased lifetime durability compared to alternative rail ties.

• Research Organization: Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Fossil Energy (FE)
• DOE Contract Number: FE0030684
• OSTI ID: 1910586
• Report Number(s): DOE-UMICH--30684
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
42 ENGINEERING
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES