Calcined clay concrete sample preparation at UTS Boral Centre for Sustainable Building. Image: Boral
Boral has confirmed a key partnership with leading researchers and industry stakeholders to develop lower-carbon concrete using Australian calcined clay.
The Australian construction materials company has partnered with University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Transport for NSW and Calix with project support from SmartCrete CRC.
The project aims to ensure the ongoing supply of Boral’s lower-carbon concrete offering. This is expected to become important as blast furnace slag and fly ash decline from their already limited reserves.
“Boral is committed to a lower carbon future and we never stand still. We are continuously improving and diversifying our lower carbon concrete offering by identifying new ways to reduce the cementitious intensity of our products,” Vik Bansal, chief executive officer and managing director at Boral, said.
“The strong demand and take-up of our lower carbon concrete range can be seen across many major Australian buildings and construction projects that use our Envisia and Envirocrete products.
“We are excited about the next generation of work being done in lower carbon concrete and Boral’s ability to support the decarbonisation of Australia’s building and infrastructure for many years to come.”
The two-year project is co-funded through the Commonwealth Government’s CRC program. It will investigate the technical feasibility of calcined clay concrete for use in Australian buildings and infrastructure. The partners – comprising suppliers, university researchers, asset owners and providers – will work on accelerated lab testing and field trials as part of the validation stage.
A first batch of Boral clay has been successfully calcined by Calix’s unique renewably powered electric calcination technology, demonstrating the potential of the approach to produce a low carbon intensity SCM.
The project follows extensive research and development at the UTS Boral Centre for Sustainable Building over the past three years, during which the suitability of several Australian clay sources was identified.
“It’s an exciting time to be at the forefront of the research and development being done on lower carbon concrete,” Dr Ali Nezhad, head of sustainability and innovation at Boral, said.
“The industry is constantly looking for ways to innovate, push the boundaries and find ways to be more sustainable. Given the abundance of clay in Australia, using Australian calcined clay was a natural decision for us.
“We have been impressed with the work done to date and initial testing in this project is promising. We look forward to the building and construction industry in Australia embracing these new innovations.”
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