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.