The development of advanced Digital Monitoring techniques to overcome critical market challenges in the adoption of Low Carbon Concrete

As the world's most used man-made material and single-largest industrial-source of CO2, concrete decarbonisation represents a critical component of sustainable construction and the cornerstone of a a global net-zero economy.

Almost 90% of concrete greenhouse-gas emissions are due to the process of producing portland cement clinker. Mix design optimisation through the use of alternative binders or reduced use of cement are therefore the most widely endorsed decarbonisation strategies.

However, technical uncertainties in the mechanical performance, batch consistency and durability of low/alternate binder concrete mixes currently represent critical bottlenecks in the adoption of Low Carbon Concrete, with few mix designers willing to adopt alternate mixes as a result.

Concrete digitization (digital tools for improving mix design, traceability and quality control) have the potential to provide the required assurance on the performance of Low-Carbon-Concrete, the requisite technology to do this accurately and at scale has however to date been largely unavailable

With Innovate UK support and combining innovations in sensor technology, machine learning and predictive data analytics, Cloud Cycle will seek to address this global industrial challenge with a real-time-monitoring system that will provide the required confidence to support mix design optimisation and introduce greater transparency in concrete production and in doing so addressing the primary challenges associated with the adoption of low carbon concrete. The project will deliver a prototype of the solution with a trial in an operational environment, project outputs to be exploited in a global market for low carbon concrete forecast to reach USD4.3Bn by 2032\.