Curious about the potential of reusing concrete from existing buildings?

We explore this in our recent paper "A digital workflow for assessing lifespan, carbonation, and embodied carbon of reusing concrete in buildings", published in the Journal of Building Engineering. 

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jobe.2024.110536

Our study reveals insights into concrete's remaining service life, CO2 uptake by carbonation, and embodied carbon savings achieved through reuse. We also explore how carbonation impacts allocation methods. 

In addition, a RILEM report published a few days ago, focusing on testing methods for carbonation resistance in concrete, recommends revising carbonation rates in EN 16757:2022 and CEN/TR 17310:2019, which were derived from seminal work conducted two decades ago, for these values in standards to be valid for service life predictions and CO2 uptake in concrete.

Our study already provides an answer to this RILEM recommendation, as we compared service life predictions and CO2 uptake in concrete between carbonation rates in EN 16757 and from our assessment (with measurements and recent data from the literature).

The reuse of concrete holds a significant and greater potential for reducing the embodied carbon of buildings compared to carbonation uptake (even when including the uptake from concrete demolition and recycling of aggregates).

The study is part of the EU-funded ReCreate project at KTH Royal Institute of Technology.