Teesside University to develop Mevocrete project

Academics from the University are collaborating with industry partners on a GBP7.6m (US$9.24m) project entitled ‘Mevocrete’, aiming to develop a new form of concrete made from the by-products of the steel and chemical industries. Teesside University has won funding from Innovate UK to work with Material Evolution to help the business scale up its technology to create a full scale on-site facility for cement production using waste steel slag at Teesworks.

The resulting product from the Mevocrete project emits up to 85 per cent less carbon dioxide when compared to a traditional concrete made from ordinary Portland cement (OPC). 

The Mevocrete project is working with a revolutionary new construction material made using waste steel slag patented by Middlesbrough-based company Material Evolution Ltd. The vast majority of waste materials from steel production are sent to landfill and it is estimated that in the UK alone there are 62Mt of unused slag waste.

Researchers from the University’s School of Computing, Engineering and Digital Technologies will analyse the steel slag and its chemical composition and measure how efficient it is at sequestering carbon. Next year will see the opening of Teesside University’s GBP13.1m Net Zero Industry Innovation Centre (NZIIC) which will be central to the Tees Valley Combined Authority’s regional innovation strategy, positioning Teesside firmly at the heart of the UK’s green industrial revolution.

The university’s project lead, Dr Sina Rezaei Gomari, said: “For the UK to meet its Net Zero targets it is imperative that new ways to decarbonise the construction industry are found, and this project has the potential to have a major impact in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”