The Institute featured an article on improved energy density in multifunctional concrete as the first story in their annual roundup of the year’s most-read pieces.
Click here to read the roundup.
Click here to read the article.
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Concrete already builds our world—could it power it, too? A new article in CONNstruction magazine explores our research on concrete “batteries” that store and release energy without compromising structural performance.
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A new article in the Connecticut Construction Industries Association’s CONNstruction magazine explores how AI is being used across the construction value chain, including in research — particularly in the discovery of materials like clinker replacements.
Click here to read the article.
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Along with its many other innovations, the Roman Empire revolutionized architecture with never-before-seen features, such as large-scale arches and dome roofs. And many of these structures still stand today despite being more than 2,000 years old.
None of it would have been possible without the Romans’ infallible building material: self-healing concrete. Now, an ancient construction site has revealed the recipe for creating this sturdy foundation.
Read more about the research led by Prof. Admir Masic in CNN.
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The world’s most common construction material has a secret. Cement, the “glue” that holds concrete together, gradually “breathes in” and stores millions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air over the lifetimes of buildings and infrastructure.
A new study from the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub quantifies this process, carbon uptake, at a national scale for the first time. Using a novel approach, the research team found that the cement in U.S. buildings and infrastructure sequesters over 6.5 million metric tons of CO2 annually. This corresponds to roughly 13 percent of the process emissions — the CO2 released by the underlying chemical reaction — in U.S. cement manufacturing. In Mexico, the same building stock sequesters about 5 million tons a year.
Click here to read the piece in MIT News.
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Ancient Roman concrete structures, such as the Pantheon, have endured for millennia despite being unreinforced. A new explainer video explores the mechanisms behind their durability, which research suggests could be attributed to a self-healing ability created by “hot mixing.”
Thank you to our Communications Intern, Allie Garbini, for creating this video.
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This research brief by Gwyneth Margaux Tangog, Pranav Pradeep Kumar, Randolph Kirchain, and Hessam AzariJafari presents a context-specific approach for modeling the carbon uptake of a concrete recycling operation. The results demonstrate how increasing stockpiling time, decreasing particle size, and spreading the stockpile over a larger area can help to optimize carbon uptake. Therefore, stakeholders could increase the carbon credits they generate by adopting alternative practices. It is recommended that the brief “Towards Accurate End-of-Life Carbon Uptake Modeling” be read first.
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How did Ancient Romans create concrete that has survived for millennia? Prof. Admir Masic and team uncovered new evidence in the walls of Pompeii that could inform today’s designs. Their new paper in Nature Communications explores a recently discovered construction site and finds the clearest evidence yet that Roman builders were using the “hot mixing” process that creates self-healing concrete.
As Zach Winn writes for MIT News, “Not only did the concrete samples contain the lime clasts described in Masic’s previous paper, but the team also discovered intact quicklime fragments pre-mixed with other ingredients in a dry raw material pile, a critical first step in the preparation of hot-mixed concrete.”
Prof. Masic explains why this matters today: “This is relevant because Roman cement is durable, it heals itself, and it’s a dynamic system. The way these pores in volcanic ingredients can be filled through recrystallization is a dream process we want to translate into our modern materials. We want materials that regenerate themselves.”
Click here to read the article.
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Did you know that concrete “inhales” CO₂ from the atmosphere? Our new explainer video breaks down carbon uptake, the natural process by which cement-based products absorb and permanently store CO₂ over time. The amount of CO₂ sequestered depends on factors like product type, surface-area-to-volume ratio, and exposure to the elements. With thoughtful design strategies, this process can be amplified to further reduce net emissions.
Understanding and accounting for carbon uptake is critical when assessing the environmental benefits and impacts of cement-based products. We are grateful to Alessandra Garbini and Esther Song for their leadership in developing this video.
Try our Whole Life Cycle Carbon Uptake Tool.
Read the interim report, “Accounting for Carbon Uptake in the EPDs of Cement-based Products.”
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This research brief led by Drs. Pranav Pradeep Kumar and Hessam AzariJafari examines how the quantity of atmospheric carbon dioxide sequestered by crushed concrete is affected by the size distribution of aggregate particles (grading) and their paste content. The brief finds that fine particles of crushed concrete exhibit an approximately 270% higher paste content and 36% higher degree of carbonation than coarser particles. The CSHub model finds 33% higher uptake than existing models applied to the same representative sample, underscoring the importance of incorporating grading variability into end-of-life (EOL) carbon uptake assessments while more accurately capturing paste content variability.
