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Unveiling Nordic Innovations

Concrete Innovation Briefing – Finland’s Betolar Ltd. Cuts CO2 Emissions by 50%

Betolar is another company that is seeking to replace cement with their own innovative geopolymer solution that uses side stream-based materials as the raw material for concrete. They have positioned themselves to be a partner with the mining and construction industries to build a more sustainable solutions.

They are like many other companies around the world that are also developing innovative geopolymers alternatives that help to reduce CO2 emissions and the usage of fossil resources in order to achieve climate goals.

One recent and interesting reference is Denmark’s concrete manufacturer IBF, that has reduced more than 50% of the CO2 emissions from concrete pipes by dropping cement by using Betolar’s Geoprime® innovation. Their first customer for the cement-free concrete pipes is the utility company Aarhus Vand A/S, which supplies drinking water and handles sewage for 350,000 private and business customers in the Aarhus area. A new stretch of 600 meters with cement-free concrete pipes is now complete on Lykkesholms Allé in the Aarhus district of Viby. Betolar’s product, Geoprime® replaces cement as a binder. It comes from the Finnish supplier Betolar and is based on blast furnace slag – a residual product from steel production. The product thus also speaks to a larger, global trend of circular economy.

For IBF, the cement-free concrete pipes do not entail major changes in the production of the pipes, and on the surface, it is almost indistinguishable from an ordinary concrete pipe. The climate-friendly change is not completely invisible, however, because the pipes have a slightly yellowish color and are also printed with the text IBF Eco2, which is the name of the concrete company’s line of products with a CO2 reduction of at least 50%.

More about concrete innovations from Sweden: Textile reinforced concrete members subjected to tension, bending, and in-plane loads: Experimental study and numerical analyses

Geopolymers explained briefly

Geopolymer is an inorganic polymer that can be used for creating new materials, for example, to replace concrete. Geopolymer cements use waste materials as a binder and are stronger and more sustainable than conventional Portland cements. 

Various research bodies have studied more many hundreds of recipes of geopolymers made with various naturally ocurring materials like lime, clays, or with industrial waste materials from power plants and mines like fly ash and mining tailings repectively.

They have a long history in Europe but it appears that they been used for thousands of years by the Romans for buildings, water storage cisterns and aqueducts.

For further information, see: https://www.geopolymer.org/archaeology/roman-cement/high-performance-roman-cement-and-concrete-high-durable-buildings/

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