Breaking the Wall of Concrete Pollution

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Concrete production is a leading cause for climate change today, generating many times more carbon dioxide pollution than air travel and leaving a significant footprint on our environment. This 2009 Falling Walls lecture video highlights Franz-Josef Ulm's nano-engineering of materials, which sets out to eradicate climate change. Ulm investigates the replacement of calcium carbonate, the active ingredient in lime, and the reduction of the massive carbon dioxide emissions created by concrete production. Building bridges has always been Ulm's métier: he oversaw the construction of actual bridges when leading composite materials research at the central civil engineering research center of the French Department of Transportation and Public Works-and now he builds metaphorical ones while directing the Concrete Sustainability Hub, a partnership between academia and the cement and concrete industry for the development of the next generation of green concrete.