Carbonaide Raises EUR 1.8M to Make Manufacturing Concrete Carbon Negative
The first industrial pilot production line can make carbon-negative concrete.
March 28, 2023
Carbonaide, a spin-out company from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland that enables the manufacturing of carbon-negative concrete, has raised EUR 1.8 million in seed funding led by Lakan Betoni and Vantaa Energy. The round was completed with public loans and in-kind contributions from Business Finland and other Finnish concrete companies and strategic investors.
The company will use the funding to integrate its CO2 curing technology into an automated production line of its precast concrete factory in Hollola, Finland. With its factory-sized pilot unit and fully operational value chain, Carbonaide can mineralize up to five tons of CO2 per day and increase production by 100-fold of its carbon-negative concrete products.
The concrete industry is responsible for 8% of global CO2 emissions, with most of the emissions originating from ordinary Portland cement manufacturing: One ton of ordinary Portland cement creates 800–900 kg of CO2 emissions. With legislation increasingly tightening around construction material emissions, industrially feasible technologies to reduce the CO2 emissions of concrete are desperately needed.
Carbonaide’s solution is based on an effective carbonation method, which binds carbon dioxide into precast concrete using an automated system at atmospheric pressure. The technology can halve the CO2 emissions of traditional Portland cement concrete by reducing the required cement content and mineralizing CO2 into concrete.
When industrial side streams--such as industry slags, green liquor dregs, and bio-ash--are used in the binding process instead of normal cement, the result is concrete with a negative carbon footprint. In the process, CO2 is permanently stored and removed from the carbon cycle.