Integrated CO2 Mineralization and Critical Mineral Recovery for Sustainable Urban and Transportation Systems

This workshop fosters international industry-academia partnerships to advance CO₂ mineralization technologies that produce carbon-negative building materials and recover critical minerals. By addressing emissions from the built environment and concrete production, the initiative aims to transform the sector into a net carbon sink, promoting sustainable construction and decarbonized urban systems.

The goal of this workshop is to spark industry-academia international partnerships that accelerate the development of new CO2 mineralization technologies, enabling the production of carbon-negative building materials and the recovery of critical minerals. This workshop responds to the urgent call to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions while addressing the critical resource demands tied to concrete production—currently responsible for approximately 6% of global CO₂ emissions within a built environment sector that accounts for 37% of emissions worldwide. The pressure to decarbonize construction materials is intensified by both the accelerating depletion of feedstocks and the electrification of transportation systems, which amplifies the need for critical mineral supplies to support renewable energy technologies and electric vehicles. These complex climate challenges, hence, urgently need innovative technical solutions that simultaneously address critical mineral recovery and concrete feedstock supply while reducing industrial emissions. 

Embracing a bold, transformative strategy, this workshop positions innovative CO₂-mineralization solutions as a means to simultaneously capture emissions at their source, produce sustainable construction materials, and recover valuable minerals. By bringing together key international researchers, industry practitioners, and the Penn State scientific community, the workshop fosters discussions on solutions that are not only environmentally responsible but also technically and economically viable. Through research presentations, the exchange of best practices, and the identification of barriers, the workshop envisions a future in which the built environment evolves from a major emitter of greenhouse gases into a net sink—contributing to decarbonized urban and transportation systems on a global scale. Ultimately, this transdisciplinary effort has the potential to achieve more than one gigatonne of CO₂ removal per year, fully decarbonizing the built environment while mitigating toxic pollutants and promoting public health. By targeting emissions reductions, critical mineral recovery, and sustainable feedstock supplies, the proposed workshop underscores the urgent need to implement cross-sector solutions that drive meaningful, equitable, and globally scalable decarbonization for the built environment and transportation systems.