Nominee
Carbon Upcycling Technologies
Category
Innovative Company
Description
NRMCA Member - Carbon Upcycling Technologies (CUT)
Carbon Upcycling helps hard-to-decarbonize industries transform carbon emissions, local industrial byproducts, and natural materials into carbon-enhanced additives. In doing so, CUT is unlocking a new frontier of circular materials for the cement, plastics, and consumer products industries.
Our Two-pronged Approach for the Cement Industry
As industries such as coal and steel pursue their own decarbonization efforts, the byproducts they used to provide as SCMs continue to dwindle. North American cement producers are now importing materials like fly ash and steel slag from countries like Turkey or excavating settled landfills, which increases both the costs and the environmental impact of their end product.
Our technology allows cement producers to produce SCMs from locally available feedstocks they could not consider previously, like clay, glass, natural pozzolans, alternative steels and more.
Carbon Upcycling’s modular reactor technology system integrates seamlessly into existing cement operations, capturing their onsite CO2 emissions and permanently embedding them into these unconventional feedstocks. The resulting carbon-enhanced SCM flows directly into material handling at the cement plant to create a low-carbon blended cement and then into downstream concrete markets.
With Carbon Upcycling, cement producers effectively reduce their embodied emissions by substituting clinker content with these carbon-enhanced SCMs while upcycling industrial waste and promoting a circular economy.
Projects - CEMEX / CRH / Burnco
Gov of UK - $2.3M project grant - https://carbonupcycling.com/2022/06/23/carbon-upcycling-awarded-2-3-million-to-manufacture-climate-resilient-cement-alternative-from-waste-glass-and-co2/
DOT Demonstration project
https://carbonupcycling.com/2022/08/03/carbon-upcycling-participates-in-first-of-a-kind-department-of-transportation-low-carbon-concrete-demonstration-project/
Evidence
Since 2021, Carbon Upcycling has commercially produced over 1,200 tonnes of carbon-enhanced SCM from reclaimed fly ash for BURNCO. Our SCM has been successfully deployed in sidewalks, footings, slab-on-grade, driveways, and house foundations.
Over the past two years, we have been working to optimize mix designs to minimize embodied carbon without compromising performance. Our focus is on reducing overall cementitious content, in other words using less cement and SCM to achieve the same MPa. Together with BURNCO, we reduce between 15 to 60 kilograms of cementitious material per cubic meter across mix designs ranging from 25 - 35 MPa. This partnership is the first of many, as we accumulate data and spearhead the adoption of sustainable industry-grade concrete in the market.
In July 2022, we participated in a research trial with the Minnesota Department of Transportation and the National Road Research Alliance, where various sustainable and durable concrete mix designs were used in an active section of the highway. We developed a mix design with a third-party lab that reduced cementitious content by 70 pounds per yard (or 12.5%) in comparison to the control mix. The highway test section is embedded with sensors that monitor and supply data. Based on the preliminary results, our concrete meets and, in some measurements, exceeds industry standards. Through trials like this, we are demonstrating the practical application of our technology. We are excited to continue changing the perception of what is achievable with our partners, CEMEX, CRH, Lafarge, and BURNCO.
Carbon Upcycling is actively working on developing an LCA with Climate Earth, the University of Calgary, and Small World Consulting for our commercial-scale equipment. The preliminary LCA produced in collaboration with Climate Earth will also produce a preliminary EPD for our carbon-enhanced SCMs.
See project links in Company Description.
Community
We are contributing members to:
- Government of Canada - Minister Champagne’s working group on decarbonizing cement
- Global Concrete and Cement Association (G)
- NRMCA member
- Carbon Leadership Forum - Alberta Hub Leader
- Carbon2Value Cohort
- Innovandi Cohort
Awards
- Foresight 50 most investable cleantech ventures - 2022 https://foresightcac.com/foresight-50/
- Cleantech Forum - Global Cleantech 100 most investable companies - 2022 https://www.cleantech.com/event/cleantech-forum-na/
- X-prize X-Factor Award winner - 2021
Images (click to expand)
