Smart Surplus Concrete Distribution (SSCD)

Waste concrete has become a global construction problem, with over 500M tonnes of surplus concrete being sent to landfill every year. The CO2 produced for the manufacture of structural concrete (using ~14% cement) is estimated at 176 kg/tonne (This is Concrete, 2017), meaning that 88M tonnes of CO2 is unnecessarily released into the atmosphere every year. To bring the concrete sector in line with the Paris Agreement, its annual emissions will need to fall by at least 16% by 2030 (Energy Technology Perspectives, 2017). There is therefore a strong need to find valorisation in surplus concrete by creating a circular economy for concrete, in turn reducing the carbon footprint of this industry.

In response, Cloud Cycle has developed an innovative solution that combines digital sensor technology in concrete trucks with intelligent analytics to calculate the volume, temperature, location & time remaining before the concrete load sets. Cloud Cycle's online platform enables concrete companies to manage wet concrete loads more efficiently, reducing waste and connecting surplus concrete with buyers, directly reducing surplus concrete from going to landfill, therefore reducing the carbon footprint of concrete production.

The focus areas of the project will be research development into the temperature of the in-transit concrete and its relation to time taken to set and distance it can travel before it sets, combined with data analytics and software/hardware integration for trial implementation in order to verify system performance and testing/validation of the business model. Cloud Cycle will partner with Concrete Mixology in this project to help develop and prove the efficacy of the technology and business model.