What Is Green Concrete?

Green concrete is a term given to a concrete that has had extra steps taken in the mix design and placement to insure a sustainable structure and a long life cycle with a low maintenance surface.

The main steps in green building are to reduce, reuse, recycle and restore. In the case of concrete, it can be reused by finding uses on other projects for the returned concrete from the job site. Returning fresh concrete to the batch plant saves fuel and materials in transport and also eliminates waste. Recycling is done by adding fly ash, slag, or silica fume to partially replace the portland cement. These pozzolans (fly ash or slag) can also enhance workability, decrease permeability and increase strength in some cases. The use of crushed recycled concrete as aggregate for new concrete is being done with great success all over the country to save landfill space and reduce costs.

Restoration refers to restoring damaged areas of a structure before it reaches the end of its life cycle instead of replacing large sections of a structure just because of surface damage. This is done with water jetting at high pressures without damaging the concrete below, then applying an overlay system that will last many years longer than the original surface applied.

Green concrete is a type of concrete that has had extra steps taken in the mix design and placement to insure a sustainable structure and a long life cycle with a low maintenance surface. Typically, green concrete has a lower carbon footprint with a lower life cycle cost than conventional concrete.

Green Concrete is an Environment Friendly Construction Material

Green Concrete is a material which is made up cement, sand, water, admixture and aggregates (gravel or crushed stone) that produces a more durable, stronger product because of the reduced amount of water used in the mix. Green concrete can also be produced by using recycled materials for the coarse and fine aggregates in the mix design.

Concrete is one of the more environmentally friendly construction products available. A typical ready-mix concrete plant can produce over 200,000 tons of concrete per year. If all the ingredients are produced from quarried limestone and sand or gravel, then there are no byproducts generated at any stage of production. All other materials in the mix are used in small quantities compared to aggregate and cement and have little effect on overall embodied energy or environmental impact due to their small quantities used.

What is Green Concrete?

“Green Concrete” is a term given to a concrete that has had extra steps taken in the mix design and placement to insure a sustainable structure and a long life cycle with a low maintenance surface. This can include the use of alternative cements, recycled materials either as aggregates or water, and/or the use of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs).

Green concrete can be designed with high strength, durability and reduced maintenance requirements. These attributes have been achieved through proper mix design and construction techniques. The combination of these features can result in an overall reduction in lifecycle costs.

The desired performance characteristics and sustainability goals will determine the selection of the appropriate concrete mix design and construction methods for each project.

Green concrete is a revolutionary topic in the history of concrete industry, also known as “sustainable concrete,” can be defined as “an environment-friendly quality product that maximizes the use of local resources, minimizes waste and requires less energy to produce than conventional concrete.” Green concrete is about reducing the environmental impact of construction, it is about using less water, using less cement and replacing some of the cement with recycled material.

Environmental implications of Concrete

Concrete is the most widely used man-made product in existence. It is second only to water as the most-consumed resource on the planet. However, its production also has a negative environmental impact on both a local and global scale, including climate change; air pollution through dust emissions; land degradation; water contamination; noise pollution; and destruction of natural habitats.

Environmental impacts during production

Cement production accounts for approximately 7% of annual CO2 emissions worldwide (1). The cement industry has now surpassed even steel production in annual emissions (2). Cement plants are responsible for approximately 5% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions (3). Of this, 50% is from the chemical process, and 40% from burning fuel. The cement industry emits nearly 900 kg CO2

Green Concrete refers to a concrete that is environment-friendly and sustainable, this concrete does not contain any hazardous chemicals. The usage of green concrete is for low strength and mass concrete works.

The main ingredients of green concrete are:

1. Fly Ash

2. GGBS/GGBF slag

3. Silica Fume

4. Rice Husk Ash

5. Foam concrete

6. Natural Pozzolana (Rice husk ash, Lime stone powder etc.)

Green concrete is a revolutionary topic in the history of concrete industry, also known as sustainable concrete. This concept was first invented by the scientist Davidovits in France. It is one of the building materials which help to reduce the global warming and hence considered as an environmental friendly material.

Green concrete is actually a combination of two things: i.e., green technology from the mixture design and green materials from by-products that are taken from other industries such as steel mills, power plants, cement manufacturing plants and coal fired power plants. The whole process of making green concrete is more economical than any other traditional concrete because it is made from recycled waste material.

Thus, green concrete is an environment friendly material which can be used for all types of construction work. The main aim to develop this type of concrete is to reduce the carbon footprint that other traditional concretes have created on the earth’s surface. Thus, green technology has been playing a significant role in reducing pollution on earth’s surface due to industrial wastes and other hazardous materials used in construction works.

This article is about the sustainable building material, for the color see green