Snøhetta has announced details of their partnership with Norwegian startup Saferock to develop net-zero concrete for the future of construction. To develop the product, the team has looked to exploit the vase residues and waste streams created by the world’s industrial processes. The result will be an alternative concrete mixture to widely used Portland-based concrete, and produced on site to reduce transport emissions.

The team’s process focuses on geopolymer concrete; a manufactured molecular material made of waste minerals from mining industries and power plants. The production of geopolymers has a CO2 footprint that is at least 70 % lower compared to the production of traditional Portland cement, turning the formerly environmentally hazardous waste into a productive construction material. In addition, geopolymers have several properties that are superior to Portland cement, such as higher temperature and chemical resistance, and significantly lower permeability.

“The first step of the research project is to pilot and scale up the development of tomorrow’s building materials in the form of low emission concrete,” the team says. “The next step will be to ensure that the technology and materials are a part of a circular ecosystem. This will truly impact the industry's environmental footprint.”

By utilizing industrial by-products to make geopolymer concrete, Snøhetta and Saferock estimates that carbon emissions associated with the production of concrete can be reduced by more than 70%, with an additional target of producing fully CO2 neutral concrete by 2025.

As the most widely used building material in the world, concrete plays a significant role in the carbon footprint of the building and construction industry. Its key component, cement, is the source of about 8 % of the world's CO2 emissions. The chemical and thermal combustion processes involved in the production of cement places the material with CO2 emissions above aviation fuel (2.5 %) and not far behind agriculture (12 %).

News of the developments in geopolymer concrete comes one week after researchers from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden published unique research into the idea of rechargeable batteries made from cement; technology that may yield a future where twenty-story concrete buildings can store energy as one giant battery.