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“Our material combines stones with a negative carbon footprint and biosourced carbon fibres”, says Kolja Kuse, CEO at TechnoCarbon Technologies
TechnoCarbon Technologies has developed a new solution designed to reduce the carbon footprint of buildings. Winner of a JEC Innovation Award, the Daccuss enclosure wall (for Direct Air Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Safe Storage) combines the effects of different materials to promote energy efficiency and CO2-negativity, while guaranteeing access to accessible and flexible resources. We spoke to Kolja Kuse, CEO at TechnoCarbon Technologies.
READING TIME
3 minutes, 30 secondes
How does CarbonFibreStone (CFS) work?
Our system is based on a compression-stable core of stone, to the surface of which a glue-bonded fibre material is applied on one side, both sides or the entire surface. This technology makes possible the production of ‘stone slabs’ from 20mm thickness down to 1.2 mm. The gravity of the stone is only a bit more than of aluminum. If they are between 1 and 2 mm thin, they will be even lighter.
The surface coating gives the composite pre-stressing. Thanks to the carbon fibre, the stone acquires tensile stability and becomes a construction material with a specific weight much less than that of steel at same performance.
Slabs and other stone geometries can be bent within adjustable limits, while being returned to their original position under lighter loads without any fatigue. This feature distinguishes the material from the metal. The elastic limits of the CarbonFibreStone (CFS) are higher than those of metal, and the material remains elastic until it breaks. The damping properties are superior to those of metals and pure carbon fibre materials. Stone slabs can be produced with 2m x 3m in size.
How do you explain the CO2 function?
CFS is a material that combines stones with a negative carbon footprint and biosourced carbon fibres. We use CO2-absorbing igneous stone (one of the three main types of rock resulting from the solidification of magma in the deep layers of the Earth’s crust or in the upper layer of the mantle), such as basalt, granite or gabbro, combined with carbon fibre, developed by the DITF – Deutsche Institute für Textil- und Faserforschung Denkendorf, which is also designed to be CO2 negative. Carbon fibres are produced either from lignin from the wood industry (biomass) or from algae oil or vegetable oil.
Natural stone is particularly interesting in this composite, as it can be extracted with low energy consumption and has a high degree of homogeneity from a mechanical point of view. It is also capable of absorbing high pressure and shear force without damage, since it has with about 60PGa a comparable low Young’s modulus of elasticity, in many cases even lower than aluminum.
Compared with concrete, natural stone has the advantage of being at least twice as stable under pressure and four times as stable under tension, and does not age within the timescales relevant to construction. Certainly, the Young’s modulus depends on the type of stone we are using. The catalogue of granite types records more than 6000 different stones. This is one of the interesting things about CFS, that there is a wide range of technical specifications we can meet. Many of these granites are literally limitless available. CFS replaces reinforced concrete, a major C02 emitter due to the use of fossil lime stone, in house walls. Each square metre of CFS wall captures 59 kg of CO2, whereas traditional cement walls emit 98 kg. Stone slabs reinforced with polyacrylonitrile (PAN) carbon fibres made from algae oil, for example, create highly carbon-negative walls. The material is also twice as light and two to three times stronger than cement. We need to get rid of all fossil material, not only in the energy sector, but in buildings as well: cement today is based by 100% on fossil based material.
What are DACCUSS bricks?
DACCUSS (Direct Air Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Safe Storage) building blocks enclosure walls (and eventually ceilings in the future) are based on CFS technology, with the effect amplified by the use of an insulating filling of carbon-negative charcoal or biochar granules. Biochar can be produced from any plant material, heated without oxygen to between 300°C and 700°C. This biomass pyrolysis residue generated green energy and is typically used already in agriculture to regenerate soils depleted by intensive farming, retain water and trap CO2 and avoid artificial fertilisation of soil.The material can be easily reused by peeling off the fibre on one side and the stone on the other. Our material requires a very small amount of carbon fibre and the stone residues, recovered in powder form when sliced for example, are used as fertiliser to absorb atmospheric CO2 by natural weathering processes. In case we would replace all concrete worldwide, we could eventally capture 4Gt of CO2 per year and avoid6 GT of CO2 of fossil origin. In a nutshell, we promote the replacement of fossil stone treatment to produce artificial stone like concrete by ultimate available igneous rock. Our project was supported by the German Goverment, Ministry of Research and Education, as part of the CDRterra project, and included Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and Techno Economical Analysis (TEA) as part of the projects milestones. The results are encouraging because, as building blocks are produced in large quantities, their costs are slightly below that of a comparable wall of concrete. First collaborations with other countries and local start-ups have already been established.