The Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics is developing concrete that even binds climate-damaging CO2. Demand from industry is already growing, reports Professor Gunnar Grün, deputy head of the institute in Oberlaindern near Holzkirchen.
The building material can be used in interior construction for insulation and soundproofing, is mold-resistant, offers a high level of fire protection, and can be completely composted. Or like the so-called carbon capture concrete (CC concrete), which – as the name suggests – binds carbon. In the form of pyrochar, which can be produced by heating in the absence of oxygen from pressed plant sections, but in principle from any organic material - even from old rotor blades from a wind turbine. It is not just about real recycling, like electrodynamic fragmentation, with which old concrete is broken down into its original raw materials, which could then be reused. It is also about the development of completely new building materials.