The new concrete has been created with a look towards the future and as part of wider plans to develop composite materials, capable of being used for a range of applications, and which are stronger, lighter, cheaper and more ecologically suited for the planet.
The concrete is the invention of Professor Richard E. Riman, who works at Rutgers University. The basis of the technology is a process that creates bonds between materials at low temperatures. The term given to this is “reactive hydrothermal liquid-phase densification (rHLPD)”; and it is a form of low-temperature solidification requiring a temperature of no greater than 240 degrees Celsius (464 degrees Fahrenheit.) The process reduces capital expenditure, making the concrete easier to produce for parts of the world with less infrastructure as well as other parts of the world that aim to lower energy use.
The concrete is made from water using processes that hitherto were created using very high temperatures, in excess of those needed to decompose plastics. The environmentally-friendly nature of the concrete is because it can store carbon dioxide (the major greenhouse gas.) As well as concrete, the technology can also be used to develop different types of polymers and ceramics, which have similar properties to wood, bone and seashells. The concrete is currently being used to fashion roofing tiles, cinder blocks and hollow core building slabs.
The new material has been reported to the Journal of the American Ceramic Society, in a paper called “Reactive Hydrothermal Liquid-Phase Densification (rHLPD) of Ceramics – A Study of the BaTiO3[TiO2] Composite System.”
