- 1/5th the cost of conventional construction.
- Replaces 40% of the NHAB listed costs for a single family house (slab, walls, exterior, roof, waterproofing)
- Premium product ( doesnt burn in wildfires, doesnt rot, resists hurricanes ) 9% of American single family houses are concrete (belonging to wealthiest counties)
So we can make housing cheap. But how can we also reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere?
- Building materials like concrete are billions of tons per year. If we can sequester in buildings, that could be a realistic sink of billions of tons of CO2.
- Bubbling air into water creates carbonic acid.
- Aerated cement (Aircrete) is a porous cement product that provides nucleation sites
- Carbonic acid in a mix with cations ( such as ca+ or mg+) will mineralize sequestering the CO2 and also creating dense/strong building materials.
- Brine wells are a low CO2 source of cations ( cacl2, etc)
- Allowing 30 years for sequestration means the direct air capture powered by solar panels with a small air pump can be inefficient and take 30 years.
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4148065
Automatic Construction's innovative Inflatable Flexible Factory Formwork (IFFF) offers a promising solution for cost-effective and environmentally sustainable construction. By delivering complete units with built-in reinforcement to construction sites, it streamlines the building process, and the incorporation of regular concrete or CO2-sequestering aircrete further enhances its eco-friendliness. Taking it a step further, the project aims to use the airtight forms to sequester CO2 within the concrete throughout the building's lifespan. Solar-powered roof pumps continuously circulate air through the forms while a water pump maintains an alkaline water mix, replenished with brine sources. The ultimate goal is to provide affordable housing that not only reduces construction costs but also actively contributes to CO2 reduction, aligning with sustainable and cost-effective building practices.
For more info visit: EmpireWorks