Concrete is the most popular building material, but it’s not good for the environment. Concrete requires cement as one of its ingredients and the process of making it accounts for up to six percent of carbon dioxide emissions from man-made sources. But now the ocean’s coral has become inspiration for a much more eco-friendly concrete.
Cement Created Under the Sea
While we’re building on land, we don’t realise that under the sea coral is creating marine cement. Researchers discovered this by looking at how corals take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and then create their own brand of ‘cement’ by forming carbonate. This becomes a strong and solid substance when combined with calcium found in the sea.
Building On Coral Cement
So how does it work for us? A company called Calera makes its own calcium carbonate, and best of all it is also focused on being sustainable. By capturing CO2 gas that gets sent into the air from industrial sources and then using it to create calcium carbonate cement, this not only offers sustainable building materials but prevents so much CO2 from entering the atmosphere. Calera ensures that up to 90 percent of the CO2 that it captures gets used so that it doesn’t end up in the atmosphere. In fact, founder of Calera, Brent Constantz, has previously stated that for every ton of cement the company makes, they eliminate half a ton of carbon dioxide!
Saving the Corals
Sustainable concrete is a great initiative that only uses corals as a muse for eco-friendly concrete, without harming them. The mining of corals, on the other hand, which uses them for a variety of things such as bricks for building, is destructive and has negative consequences for the health of our oceans. Corals are not only beautiful but they need to be protected. They ensure habitats for various marine life, provide compounds that can be used in human medicine and they work as barriers against hurricanes and storms.
Image credit: Carlos André Santos / Dollar Photo Club
