{"id":238781,"date":"2026-06-11T22:06:47","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T03:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/co%e2%82%82-injection-reveals-hidden-cement-chemistry-behind-13-stronger-early-strength"},"modified":"2026-06-11T22:06:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T03:06:47","slug":"co%e2%82%82-injection-reveals-hidden-cement-chemistry-behind-13-stronger-early-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/co%e2%82%82-injection-reveals-hidden-cement-chemistry-behind-13-stronger-early-strength","title":{"rendered":"CO\u2082 injection reveals hidden cement chemistry behind 13% stronger early strength"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/coe28282-injection-reveals-hidden-cement-chemistry-behind-13-stronger-early-strength2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>One September day, it started to snow inside MIT\u2019s Pierce Laboratory. Researchers depressurized a tank of liquid carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2<\/sub>), instantly freezing it and releasing solid flakes. These were blended into cement paste and pressed into disks roughly the size of a dime, each sealed with a thin layer of vegetable oil to keep water in and air out. The team trained lasers on each one, observing for the first time the transient chemical reaction that might explain why CO<sub>2<\/sub>-injected cement paste gains strength faster.<\/p>\n<p>Injecting CO<sub>2<\/sub> into cement products like concrete is one way to store it and keep it out of the atmosphere. The process has attracted commercial interest, with a growing number of companies offering CO<sub>2<\/sub>-injected concrete mixes. But until now, the underlying cement chemistry hadn\u2019t been directly visualized.<\/p>\n<p>A new <a href=\"https:\/\/ceramics.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/jace.70825\" target=\"_blank\">paper<\/a> in the <i>Journal of the American Ceramic Society <\/i>\u2014led by associate professor Admir Masic and first-authored by graduate student Marcin Hajduczek, both of the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub and MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering\u2014describes the chemical sequence that unfolds after CO<sub>2<\/sub> meets fresh cement paste. Co-authors include MIT colleagues Santiago El Awad and Franz-Josef Ulm, alongside researchers from IIT Jodhpur and CarbonCure Technologies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One September day, it started to snow inside MIT\u2019s Pierce Laboratory. Researchers depressurized a tank of liquid carbon dioxide (CO2), instantly freezing it and releasing solid flakes. These were blended into cement paste and pressed into disks roughly the size of a dime, each sealed with a thin layer of vegetable oil to keep water [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,38,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chemistry","category-engineering","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}