Mitsubishi Corporation (MC) has announced that its proposal for researching and developing new ways to use CO2 in the production of concrete has been selected for the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organisation of Japan (NEDO1) grant project that encompasses technological developments in the areas of carbon-recycling.

 

Carbon-recycling technologies make effective use of CO2 emissions captured from steel mills, power plants, cement manufacturing plants, and other facilities to create value-added products. They are being developed as a means to help address climate change, said a statement from Mitsubishi. 

 

Having recognized their potential, MC is working on those that inject CO2 into concrete, where it becomes mineralized and permanently embedded. Concrete is an essential material for civil engineering and construction projects, and its global market is growing, it stated.

 

Most of the current carbon-recycling technologies are mainly used for a limited scope of unreinforced concrete, such as concrete blocks, so the challenge now is to enhance their mineralization capabilities and broaden their applications.

 

This joint endeavour between MC, Kajima Corporation, and Chugoku Electric Power Company, aims to improve these technologies so that they can also be applied to the reinforced and cast-in-place concretes used in building construction.

 

MC has already been involved in the development of concrete projects that take advantage of carbon-recycling, including a zero-emission, ecological concrete called CO2-SUICOM2.

 

CCUS3 technology including Carbon-recycling is an excellent opportunity for MC to leverage its strengths, as collaborations are essential across industries that both emit and use CO2. By developing such businesses, MC will realise its vision of simultaneously generating economic, societal, and environmental value.