Project description
Building cement-free concrete
Widely used in construction, cement-based concrete is loved for its weight and endurance but loathed for its impact on the environment. Each year, more than 4 billion tonnes of cement are produced, accounting for around 8 % of global CO2 emissions. What is more, construction and demolition waste constitutes half of Europe’s solid waste, of which less than 50 % is being recycled. Delivering safe and affordable housing while reducing CO2 and introducing circular economy is the goal of the EU-funded OXA project. The proposed solution is to blend construction and demolition waste or excavation materials with non-toxic and safe mineral-based additives to produce cement-free concrete.
Objective
Construction is reliant on cement-based concrete which is the most used synthetic material and the most environmentally unfriendly material. Globally concrete uses 40bn tons of sand and 40% of global energy annually. Population growth has resulted in increased demand for housing, currently around 1bn people live in slums and are in need of decent and affordable housing. Statistics on the affordability of housing showed that 11.4 % share of the EU population live in households that spent 40% or more of their “equivalised disposable income” on housing, which cannot be ignored in the EU's fight against poverty. In 2008, the EU identified Construction and demolition waste as a priority waste stream as it constituted 49% of Europe’s solid waste producing 887 million tons of waste of which less than 50% is being recycled with the rest frequently not used and landfilled because its use is time consuming, labour intensive, cost intensive and requiring important machinery.
Oxa is a solution for construction and housing markets that targets to deliver safe and affordable housing worldwide while reducing CO2 from construction industry and introducing circular economy. Oxa uses materials such as Construction and demolition waste or excavation materials blended with novel Oxa, non-toxic and safe mineral-based additives to produce cement free concrete, bricks and flooring solutions.
In 2017, global market for residential building construction was €3.75 trillion and is estimated to reach €6.12trillion by 2022.
Our Phase 1 project seeks to validate the technical, commercial and financial viability of Oxa, while our Phase 2 project we will optimise our manufacturing process, get our product certified and licenced in target markets and conduct exploitation and dissemination activities.
With this project we forecast a payback period of 4 years, to make revenues of €28M by our 5th year of commercialization and ROI in 436% in 5 years and also create about 100 new jobs in the EU.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1Coordinator
8093 ZURICH
Switzerland
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.