[Moonman62]

He said increasing the strength of cement allows manufacturers to use less concrete, decreasing not only weight but also the energy required to make it and the carbon emissions associated with cement’s manufacture.

...

My prediction is this will never be commercialized.

[cyclotic]

The company I work for makes a material that uses very similar technology. Different sizes of beads give the product some really cool handling characteristics.

However, I don’t see it for something huge scale like concrete. Concrete is essentially the mixing of a bunch of natural materials with a small amount of manufactured admixtures for specific characteristics.

I can’t imagine how you would scale up sphere production and ship it globally to replace naturally occurring products that are merely dug out of the ground, heated, crushed and packaged

[dangus]

The unmentioned factor is cost. $400/lb concrete may be useful for bone replacements...

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

use less concrete, decreasing not only weight but also the energy required to make it and the carbon emissions associated with cement’s manufacture.

If I knew anything about chemistry, I would say that limestone is CaCO₃. And that cement is produced by causing limestone to dissociate under heat into CaO and CO₂. So much would agree with the statement above.

OTOH if I knew anything about chemistry I would say that when cement sets, the reverse reaction occurs and CaO and CO₂ from the atmosphere combine to form CaCO₃. But that can’t be right, because the article clearly indicates that using cement is a net addition of CO₂ to the atmosphere.

[TexasTransplant]

*** “use less concrete, decreasing not only weight but also the energy required to make it and the carbon emissions associated with cement’s manufacture” ***

Hit Piece!

They just Hate Trees