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Vaisala's state-of-the-art measurement instruments support the construction industry's carbon capture, utilization and storage goals
As our climate continues to warm, the demand for technologies that can efficiently remove CO2 from the atmosphere is increasing. Proposed solutions for CO2 sequestration abound, but there are serious problems in verifying claims made by proponents of CO2-reducing innovations. Indeed, accurate measurement of these claims has become a key issue in the private sector Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM), which increasingly emphasizes the need to monitor, verify and report the amount of CO2 that is actually captured and stored.
Carbonaide, a Finnish company for the concrete industry, has a clear answer to this need - and it is ready for the market. With the support and cooperation of Vaisala, Carbonaide's solution is actually quite practical and straightforward: Measure everything accurately.
Major challenges require intelligent solutions
Climate-damaging CO2 emissions come from many sources, but the concrete industry alone emits 8% of the world's CO2, mainly in the form of emissions from the standard production of Portland cement. In fact, the United Nations has called for a 16% reduction in emissions from the cement industry within ten years, as cement emissions in themselves already jeopardize the entire 2015 Paris Agreement to keep global warming below two degrees.
A single ton of Portland cement produces a staggering 800-900 kilograms of CO2 emissions, and as laws regarding emissions in concrete production become more stringent, efficient technologies to reduce CO2 emissions from concrete are increasingly in demand. The challenges are manifold: How can CO2 be removed? Where should it be stored? How can this be done cost-effectively? And - just as importantly - how can it be accurately measured that this has actually happened?
A concrete solution - the Carbonaide method
We present the Finnish-based start-up Carbonaide. Put simply, Carbonaide's expertise lies in converting concrete from a major source of emissions into a material that stores carbon. The company's CEO is Tapio Vehmas, a trained analytical chemist with more than 20 years of experience in the concrete industry. He is one of the co-founders of Carbonaide alongside COO Jonne Hirvonen. As Vehmas puts it: "Our goal is very focused - to create a more sustainable future with cutting-edge technology that not only reduces CO2 emissions from concrete, but also stores more CO2 than it emits throughout its lifetime."
Vehmas explains: "Carbonaide offers the most effective and robust carbonation technology for precast concrete manufacturers. We are experts in carbon curing and sustainable carbon value chains. With our technology, a concrete manufacturer can reduce cement consumption in daily production and also reduce the carbon footprint of its products by mineralizing CO2 into concrete."
Vaisala technology provides the decisive edge
Jonne Hirvonen, COO of Carbonaide, is keen to tell you about the benefits of the production-ready innovation and how his team has benefited from Vaisala's advanced measurement tools. "Our unique advantage is that we can accurately measure and control the carbon curing process. We have also taken great care to ensure that our product is as easy as possible to install and commission. The majority of our measurements naturally revolve around CO2 content - and the quality of the online measurement data is a top priority for us."
Hirvonen continues: "Unlike many others, our carbonation can be efficiently and accurately checked using process measurements without the need to constantly sample the concrete products." An early challenge we faced was that CO2 is normally measured either in ppm or for health and safety reasons - but our range of needs is very broad. For this reason, we needed novel solutions that would not compromise the quality of our measurements. We realized that Vaisala could play an important role in our solution."
The initial requirement for Vaisala was quite simple. As they developed their process, they realized that there were significant measurement requirements and they were keen to work with a partner who really knew their business. Hirvonen also emphasizes that the partnership with Vaisala was not only useful in the early stages of development, pointing out that "for a growing company, only partners that can deliver are of interest. Our goal is not just to develop, but to implement on a large scale."
As Vaisala Product Manager Antti Viitanen states: "Sustainability is about proven numbers rather than big words. To make decarbonization a reality, reliable measurement data is an absolute must."
Both Hirvonen and Vehmas emphasize that not only their concrete production customers demand accurate measurements and high quality, but also the entire construction sector that uses these concrete products. As Hirvonen puts it: "Doing things in a clumsy way is not an option. Our industry only accepts robust, credible solutions, because buildings are meant to last for decades."
Commenting on Carbonaide's own plans for the coming years, Vehmas says: "Our goal is to sequester 500 million tons of carbon dioxide by 2050, and we see no major obstacles as to why this shouldn't happen, as we have now reached industrial-scale processing capacity and there is a clear, consistent - and obvious - demand for our product. In fact, if all of the world's cement production used our production process, 1.5 gigatons of carbon dioxide could be captured."