This week, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) announced $5 million in research funding to Rutgers University Center for Advanced Infrastructure and Transportation (CAIT). The partnership between USDOT and Rutgers will result in development approaches to decarbonize, promote sustainability, and strengthen the resilience of the nation’s transportation infrastructure.
Joined by a team of academic and industry partners, Rutgers will investigate materials to support net-zero greenhouse gas emissions goals while also strengthening infrastructure resilience and minimizing adverse environmental impacts from the transportation industry.
The backbone of roads and bridges across the world, cement and concrete are important construction materials, but they also contribute significantly to global carbon dioxide emissions, according to a press release from Rutgers.
“Under the leadership of the Biden-Harris Administration, we’re developing the next generation of construction materials that can reduce carbon emissions and make transportation part of the solution to address climate change,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Eight percent of annual global carbon dioxide emissions are related to cement production, with a significant portion coming from building and maintaining transportation infrastructure, according to a press release from Rutgers.
As recent transportation investments in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law call for approximately 28 million metric tons of cement, extensive research into sustainable building materials is needed.
“A byproduct of iron and steel production, slag naturally has a chemical composition that can be used to reduce or replace traditional cement,” said Robert Miskewitz, research professor at Rutgers and principal investigator, in a statement. “Approximately 16 million tons of slag was produced domestically in 2023, representing a significant opportunity for this material to be reused in innovative and sustainable ways.”
Source: U.S. Department of Transportation, Rutgers University