A National Science foundation grant will allow civil engineering researchers to work on an environmentally-friendly, hardier concrete material.
Assistant professor of civil engineering at The University of Texas Warda Ashraf received almost half a million dollars in grant money to develop it.
According to a recent Mirage News report, Ashraf says modern cement is made through a carbon dioxide-emitting process which is bad for the environment.
More from the report:
“The goal of this project is to extend the life of this environmentally friendly concrete by using a new type of external additive. This new type of composite can potentially provide similar or better mechanical performance as conventional concrete but are more environmentally friendly.”
The title of the project is “Controlling the Interaction Between Carbon Dioxide and Cementitious Materials Using Biomimetic Molecules.”
Ali Abolmaali, chair of the Civil Engineering Department, said the collaboration across disciplines only strengthens the research project.
We’ve already learned about how some of the world’s largest cloud providers handle their own environmental footprint. But it’s easy to overlook something as simple and common in the world of technology and large corporate spaces as concrete. It’s almost everywhere.
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If environmentally friendly concrete can be successfully developed, what other common materials can be improved upon?
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