The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced five projects that will receive a total of $16.4 million in funding to focus on next-generation cement formulations and process routes as well as carbon capture and utilization technologies to address CO2 emissions in the cement industry.
The funding is part of a $135 million grant program that will help reduce carbon pollution from the industrial sector and move the nation toward a net-zero emissions economy by 2050.
Primarily funded through the DOE’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office, 40 projects will support research, development, and pilot-scale demonstrations to reduce energy usage and emissions from high-emitting industrial subsectors and find solutions that can be applied across the industrial sector.
“America’s industrial sector serves as the engine of the U.S. economy, producing many of the products we rely on every day, but also produces a significant amount of the nation’s carbon emissions,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “These projects funded by President Biden’s Investing in American agenda will slash industrial emissions and accelerate next-generation technologies for a clean energy future that’s made in America.”
The selected projects for the cement and concrete subsector are:
- Accelerated Decarbonization of Cement via Integrated CO2 Capture and Mineralization to Produce High Strength Construction Materials; Cornell University; $4 million.
- Beyond Portland: Creating the Next Generation of Low Carbon Hybrid Cements; University of Kentucky; $2,686,624.
- Production of Amorphous Calcium Carbonate from Captured Cement Kiln Flue Gas CO2 for Use as Supplementary Cementitious Material in a Low-Emissions Blended Cement; Calcify dba Carbon Capture Machine; $3,026,792.
- Tailored Ultra-Low Carbon Concrete Enabled by Nanocarbon Additives Produced from Recycled Kiln CO2; SkyNano; $3,450,295.
- Towards Durable Carbon-Negative Concrete: Using Biochar to Replace Part of the Clinker and Fine Aggregate; Washington State University; $3,239,240.
