Assessment of product carbon accounting associated with carbon dioxide-storing concrete via mineral carbonation and utilization

For a sustainable transition toward climate neutrality, the cement industry continually not only enforces energy conservation measures but focuses on carbon management. Among the decarbonized measures to produce low-emission cements with a CO 2 footprint, the cement and concrete sectors have developed a carbon recycling system integrating the complete concrete value chain. Within this system, enforced mineral carbonation technologies, such as the “mineral carbon capture” (for anthropogenic CO 2 ) or “mineral direct air carbon capture” (for atmospheric CO 2 ) technologies, are applied to generate sustainable carbonates, labeled as recarbonates. This leads to CO 2 emissions reduction and further promote product carbon storage in cement-based matrices. In this study, a methodology to calculate product CO 2 accounting associated with a carbon dioxide-storing (CDS) concrete was established. CDS concrete contains “recarbonates” generated by both carbonation technologies. We also evaluated a reduction in the embedded carbon storage capacity of CDS concrete containing recarbonates and calcium-rich treated water from a ready-mixed concrete plant as mixing water. For CDS concrete in which recarbonates are substituted for 3% of the cement content, we measured a decrease of 12.07 kg CO 2 /m 3 in embedded carbon relatively to an ordinary ready-mixed concrete.