Australia Wants To Convert CO2 To Construction Material

Imagine if you could suck all the excess Carbon Dioxide out of the air and use it to build things? That’s exactly what Mineral Carbonation International in Australia wants to do. The company has just unveiled their first facility designed to recreate the natural process in which rain creates new rocks, but a lot faster.

The fact that rain even makes rocks is news to me, let alone the fact that we can recreate the procedure! Here’s how it works: Firs, they capture the CO2 from their own mining operation on Kooragang Island. The CO2 then bonds with a rock called serpentinite, creating solid carbonates. The whole process takes just about an hour and the resulting product can be used to make everything from cement, to bricks, and even drywall.

The factory should be able to run on a nearly continuous basis and, if successful, will have created 20,000 to 50,000 metric tons of the material for use in building by 2020.

Here’s what the CEO of MCI, Marcus Dawe, had to say about the new plant:
“We need solutions to climate change. We need technology that is ready and tested by the time we have solved the pricing of carbon in our economy. Like the adoption of renewables in energy production, our technology aims to help decarbonize industries like cement, steel, and chemical production.”

Source: Inhabitat