Building a Greener Future

Renolith is Committed to Sustainability

via a triple bottom line model:

Triple buttom line

Sustainable Road

Renolith enables roads to be constructed using 100% in-situ soils and/or recycled aggregates, thereby eliminating the need to mine, crush and transport vast quantities of virgin quarry material.

Renolith was originally developed as an admixture for Portland cement. However, cement production is energy intensive with a high carbon footprint. Subsequent research has confirmed its compatibility with pozzolans/Supplementary Cementitious Materials (SCMs) such as fly ash, lime and GGBS (Ground Granulated Blast-Furnace Slag). It is effective in mix designs using lower-carbon binders (eg. Blends incorporating cement and recycled SCMs such as slag or fly ash).

Video source: Loudon International

Paving the Way to Sustainable Infrastructure

Renolith 2.0 pavements have strong sustainability credentials, including:

Net Zero Roads
Australia is committed to reducing GHG emissions and improving the resilience of infrastructure to cope with climate change. Mature and affordable technology is available to deliver on this commitment.
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Road network resilience can be greatly improved, and GHG emissions radically reduced, by adopting appropriate technology in infrastructure works. The optimal climate-smart pavement engineering approach is in-situ stabilisation using low-embodied energy cementitious binders, enhanced by nanotechnology (aka Nanoengineered Geopolymers). There are 3 simple principles involved:

1. Stabilise
2. Enhance
3. Optimise

In-situ stabilisation techniques have advantages over alternates, saving costs, time, energy use and GHG emissions related to:

  • Excavation of the existing materials
  • Trucking materials off site
  • Dumping or disposal of excavated materials
  • Quarrying replacement materials
  • Trucking replacement materials to site

The embodied GHG emissions for a typical suburban pavement rehabilitation project were reduced by over 85% by using a stabilised basecourse instead of an unbound granular basecourse (Smith & Vorobieff, 2007)

Slow setting binders (e.g. 85% GGBFS / 15% lime) have a lower carbon footprint than GP/GB cement and typically yield better results.

Austroads AGPT04D-19 states: “The use of stabilisation technology for stabilising and recycling materials for pavement construction and maintenance is widely accepted as a cost-effective method of improving long-term performance and reducing whole-of-life costs of modern, heavily-trafficked pavements…[but]…Cracking is the primary and predominant distress type of cementitiously-bound materials.”

Renolith nanotechnology prevents cracking problems in cementitiously bound materials, and greatly enhances the material engineering properties. A small quantity of Renolith 2.0 admixture (5% w/w binder) can improve the pavement life (traffic capacity) by 3x-70x and greatly reduce the risk of potholes and other water-induced premature failures.

This results in a significant reduction in whole-of-life GHG emissions by reducing the maintenance and rehabilitation impost.

Renolith allows the pavement designer greater flexibility to optimise for sustainability. Renolith greatly reduces the susceptibility of cementitiously stabilised material to shrinkage cracking, so upper limits on pavement strength can be relaxed. This enables a thinner base layer and thin wearing course. It also enables marginal or poor material to be utilised in the basecourse.

If the in-situ material is very poor, aggregates may be added to achieve the desired plasticity and particle-size distribution (PSD) in the material to be bound (MTTB). Local gravels or recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) are typically used. In principle, pavement net embodied emissions could be reduced below zero by using carbonated RCA, which can sequester up to 50 kg CO2/tonne.

These principles can be applied today using extant specifications & standards, using technology proven over decades and millions of square metres of pavements. Climate smart roads are possible and affordable. In fact, a significant reduction in both construction costs and whole-of-life costs is achievable.

Renolith Contribution to Reducing GHG Emissions

There is potential to significantly reduce road construction industry GHG emissions by pivoting to in-situ stabilisation and cold- recycling using low-carbon binders and Renolith 2.0 nanopolymer admixture as the primary pavement construction method. This potential arises from attractive economics, a low carbon footprint at construction, and high pavement design life and durability.

Scan the slide presentation below to learn more.

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Quickly estimate and compare the triple bottom line cost ($, carbon footprint, materials usage) of pavement rehabilitation options.

Significant reduction in CO₂e emissions compared to conventional road construction.

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