Carbonation of Concrete
About:
Greenwash alert:
- “Concrete can sequestrate carbon dioxide from the atmosphere”
- it can, but its penetration is very shallow, any deeper and it degrades the concrete’s durability and can lead to reinforcement failure
- Carbonation of concrete is a severe problem requiring intensive repair
Avoid or reduce the use of these:
- I was told by my engineer carbonation of concrete was bad for concrete so he coats concrete to prevent this happening,
- Now the concrete sector marketing arm want us to account for carbon sequestration in concrete.
- We cannot if its coated.
- Carbonation can only be assumed to affect the first 5 mm. or so over the exposed surface area.
- Dodgy marketing.
- Carbonation in concrete reduces the alkalinity that protects ordinary steel reinforcement from corrosion.
- Once the carbonated layer reaches reinforcement, it’s at risk of corrosion, and as corrosion products are more bulky than the raw steel, the concrete spalls, and you then get into expensive repairs – both in cost and environmental impact of the materials used.
- And as reinforcement is generally as near to the surface as possible to maximise strength, there’s not much carbonation that can take place before you start to get into failure conditions.
- Of course you could galvanize the reinforcement after bending (energy-intensive hot-dip process) or use stainless / GRP / other composite reinforcement …
- All of which rather defeats the point of encouraging carbonation in the first place.
© GBE NGS ASWS BrianMurphy
aka BrianSpecMan
6th July 2014 23rd January 2019
Carbonation of Concrete
Images:
© GBE NGS ASWS BrianMurphy
aka BrianSpecMan
6th July 2014 – 23rd January 2019
Carbonation of Concrete
See Also:
GBE JARGON BUSTER
- Carbonation
- Carbon Sequestration
GBE CPD
GBE SOLUTIONS
GBE SYSTEMS
GBE MANUFACTURERS
GBE PRODUCTS
GBE ACCESSORIES
GBE ROBUST SPECIFICATION
© GBE NGS ASWS BrianMurphy
aka BrianSpecMan
6th July 2014 – 23rd January 2019
