A groundbreaking new technology that removes carbon from the atmosphere and locks it into recycled concrete is being introduced to the UK by Aggregate Industries.
The building materials supplier, part of the global Holcim Group, has partnered with neustark to set up a mineralisation plant in London - the first venture into the UK market for the Swiss cleantech start-up which has 19 sites in Europe to date.
Demolished concrete is the world’s largest waste stream.
Neustark technology helps turn this waste into a carbon sink - permanently locking carbon removed from the atmosphere into processed concrete.
The technology works by taking concrete from demolished buildings which is crushed and screened at an AIUK recycling site. It then undergoes a procedure in which CO2, captured from biogas plants, is liquified and injected into the concrete granules.
This triggers a mineralisation process which permanently locks the captured carbon into the granules and can then be used to make new concrete with the recycled content inside or other building materials.
So far neustark has permanently removed more than 2,500 tonnes of carbon since it launched commercially in 2023, with an aim of removing one million tonnes by 2030.
Holcim invested in neustark last year and is collaborating with it to deploy their innovative solution at its sites worldwide, scaling up low-carbon and circular construction to multiple sites. The partnership won the 2023 Deloitte “Technology Fast 50” Venture Client Award for outstanding collaborations between startups and large companies.
A first small-scale mobile plant is now in operation in Greenwich, and it will start removing hundreds of tonnes of CO2 in the coming months. A large-scale site is set to be installed in the first half of 2025 with a capacity of removing 1,000 tonnes of CO2 per year (net).
As well as the introduction of neustark to the UK, Aggregate Industries is also looking to decarbonise its wider operations including at its Cauldon Cement Plant where it is planning to capture carbon emissions from site and pipe them to permanent storage in disused gas fields underneath the eastern Irish Sea.
