FIVE percent of CO2 emissions produced by humans come from making cement.
Cement is used in making concrete, and currently, one tonne of CO2 is released while making one ton of cement for concrete.
According to researchers in Texas, a more environmentally-friendly solution is to use rice husks, burned at very high temperatures, to make concrete.
Originally, burning rice husks previously left ash too “contaminated by carbon” to be useful.
But according to Rajan Vempati of ChK Group, researchers have recently discovered that burning the husks at very high temperatures in a furnace, 800 degrees centigrade, gets rid of the carbon leaving only pure silica particles behind.
Some CO2 is emitted by the process but that is easily offset by the amount of CO2 absorbed into rice paddies each year.
Now that a way has been found to reduce rice husks to carbon-free silica particles, the husks can replace 20 percent of the cement normally used to make concrete.
According to Vempati, using rice husks will also cut down on the overall carbon emissions from the concrete industry.
Vempati said he and his research team are still continuing to test and refine their method, and if everything goes as planned, the team will build a furnace big enough to burn 15,000 tons of rice husks annually.
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