CarbStone: Synthetic marble for carbon storage and utilization

CarbStone targets to radically cut the carbon footprint of construction industry by enabling the use of magnesium carbonates (MCs) as a carbon-bearing material. CarbStone will develop the first-of-its-kind concept and process to use different types of MCs to produce stone-like blocks, bricks and panels which contains up to 50 mass-% CO2 in the products.

Project information

Project duration

-

Funded by

Other Finnish

Project funder

Teknologiateollisuuden 100-vuotissäätiö ja Suomen uudistumista

Funding amount

524 639 EUR

Project coordinator

University of Oulu

Unit and faculty

Fibre and Particle Engineering
Faculty of Technology

Contact information

Project leader

Contact person

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Researchers

Project description

CarbStone enables quick, low-energy carbonation process with energy recovery, resulting in solid stone-like products of arbitrary shapes and sizes. Most high-temperature processes are energy intensive, however the chemical reaction from magnesium silicates to magnesium carbonates produces energy, which can be recovered and utilized. By demonstrating the innovative use of MCs in construction materials, CarbStone would enable viable approaches for a scalable and CO2 net-negative building materials for mass applications. If successful, CarbStone also paves the way to upcycle this large MCs stream (in gigaton range per year) from ex-situ carbonation processes and create novel market and business opportunities (European market size ~3.9 B€ for bricks alone) and lead to a reduction of >500 Mt CO2/year (~50 B€), turning the cement and concrete industry from a heavy emitter into a carbon sink.

Project actions

Research groups

Magnesia-based materials and systems