{"id":13130,"date":"2025-12-01T09:27:05","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T15:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=13130"},"modified":"2025-12-01T09:27:05","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T15:27:05","slug":"this-uw-madison-spinoff-is-making-environmentally-friendly-cement-the-secret-ingredient-is-pollution","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/this-uw-madison-spinoff-is-making-environmentally-friendly-cement-the-secret-ingredient-is-pollution\/","title":{"rendered":"This UW-Madison spinoff is making environmentally friendly cement. The secret ingredient is pollution."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo:<\/a>
Research engineer Casey Jones inspects a drying belt at Alithic’s demonstration plant in Madison, which combines carbon dioxide from the atmosphere with ash and other industrial wastes to make a low-cost, carbon-negative building material. Photo credit: Chris Hubbuch\/Wisconsin Energy Institute<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alithic combines carbon dioxide, coal ash to make cheaper, stronger building material<\/h2>\n
\n

Taken individually, coal ash and excess carbon dioxide are harmful pollutants. Combined in just the right way, they form a durable, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly building material.<\/p>\n

University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison spinoff\u00a0Alithic<\/a>\u00a0is leveraging this unique formula to turn waste streams from liabilities into profits, producing a key ingredient of concrete, the\u00a0most abundant manufactured product in the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Based on a discovery by engineering professor Bu Wang, Alithic uses chemical reactions to pull carbon dioxide from the air and mix it with industrial wastes like coal ash, generating a mineral product \u2014 known as supplementary cementitious material, or SCM \u2014 that can be substituted for traditional Portland cement,\u00a0one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"A
\nAlithic co-founder Rob Anex, professor of biological systems
\nengineering at UW\u2013Madison, explains how a carbonated alkaline
\nsolution reacts with coal ash to form a substitute for cement.<\/span><\/em>
\nPhoto by Chris Hubbuch\/Wisconsin Energy Institute<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Instead of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere to make cement, Alithic\u2019s process locks it away in a product that’s cheaper and in some cases stronger than traditional cement.<\/p>\n

Cleantech Group, a market intelligence firm focused on emerging technologies, recently named Alithic to a\u00a0watchlist of 50 early-stage innovators<\/a>\u00a0creating groundbreaking solutions to address some of the world\u2019s most pressing environmental and sustainability challenges. Alithic was also a finalist in Cemex Ventures\u2019 green construction startup competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur new demonstration plant in Madison moves the technology out of the lab and shows this is a commercially-relevant industrial process,\u201d said Rob Anex, a professor of biological systems engineering who co-founded the company with Wang and now serves as an advisor.<\/p>\n

In a nondescript warehouse on the east side of Madison, the core of Alithic\u2019s five-person team is honing the process a few kilograms at a time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"A<\/div>\n

Alithic’s demonstration plant on Robertson Road in Madison pulls carbon dioxide from the air and combines it with industrial waste to make a low-cost substitute for cement. Alithic is raising money to build a larger pilot plant in Alabama.<\/span> Photo by Chris Hubbuch\/WIsconsin Energy Institute<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

A fan sucks air into a modified cooling tower where it passes over an alkaline solution of sodium hydroxide, which reacts with carbon dioxide. That carbonated solution is then mixed with the coal ash (or similar industrial waste), where the carbon bonds with minerals in the ash to form carbonate and releases sodium hydroxide. The slurry is pumped onto a belt filter, which dries the finished product and drains off the solution to be reused in the first step.<\/p>\n

Unlike most\u00a0direct-air capture technologies<\/a>, the process requires very little energy.<\/p>\n

Fly ash from an ash landfill in Alabama arrives in five-gallon buckets. The treated waste is then shipped to ready-mix concrete plants, where potential customers are testing its binding properties.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\"Closeup<\/div>\n

Made from waste such as coal ash, Alithic’s supplemental cementitious material (SCM) acts as a bonding agent in concrete. Unlike traditional Portland cement, the process removes carbon dioxide from the air and locks it in the building material. Photo by <\/span>Chris Hubbuch\/Wisconsin Energy Institute<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Many plants already add fly ash to their concrete, said chief technology officer Hamp Thornton, but Alithic\u2019s product contains more reactive silica, which provides greater strength.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a better product than when we dug it out of the ground,\u201d Anex said.<\/p>\n

Alithic is testing other waste streams with calcium or magnesium, including blast furnace slag. But Anex points out that electric utilities have billions of tons of coal ash that must be moved into lined pits to prevent groundwater contamination.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"A
\nChief technology officer Hamp Thornton inspects an air contactor at
\nAlithic’s demonstration plant in Madison on Oct. 21, 2025.
\nThe machine passes air over an alkaline solution of sodium hydroxide,
\nwhich absorbs carbon dioxide. Photo by <\/span>Chris Hubbuch\/Wisconsin Energy Institute<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

\u201cIf we can intercept it that\u2019s great,\u201d Anex said. \u201cWe\u2019re cleaning up a mess, and we\u2019re making SCM.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alithic is now raising the funds to build a ton-scale pilot plant at the\u00a0National Carbon Capture Center<\/a>, a research center operated by utility company Southern Company in collaboration with the Department of Energy and other governmental partners in Wilsonville, Alabama.<\/p>\n

Anex hopes to begin construction in the next 12 months.<\/p>\n

The demonstration plant is a scaled-up and streamlined version of technology Anex and Wang developed in a lab at the Wisconsin Energy Institute with a group of students as part of the Musk Foundation\u2019s\u00a0XPrize Carbon Removal competition<\/a>\u00a0and later refined with the a help of a\u00a0$2.3 million Department of Energy grant<\/a>\u00a0to develop building materials that store carbon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\"A
\nA computer monitor at Alithic’s demonstration plant shows the
\ncarbon dioxide concentration of air drop from about 450 parts per
\nmillion when it enters the plant to around 125 ppm when it leaves.<\/span>\u00a0<\/em>
\nPhoto by Chris Hubbuch\/Wisconsin Energy Institute<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

But since its incorporation in 2023, Alithic has pivoted away from carbon sequestration as a business model.<\/p>\n

Though carbon capture tax credits will still generate some revenue \u2014 last year Alithic\u00a0signed a contract to remove 285 tons of carbon<\/a>\u00a0for a group of corporate buyers \u2014 the spinoff company is focused on the product.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur business plan is to sell high quality SCM. Our customers care very little about how much carbon we capture,\u201d Anex said. \u201cThat we pull CO2 from the air is a bonus to them, but not something they are willing to pay for \u2014 at least today.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Written by Chris Hubbuch, UW-Madison<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/energy.wisc.edu\/news\/uw-madison-spinoff-making-environmentally-friendly-cement-secret-ingredient-pollution<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alithic combines carbon dioxide, coal ash to make cheaper, stronger building material Taken individually, coal ash and excess carbon dioxide are harmful pollutants. Combined in just the right way, they form a durable, inexpensive, and environmentally friendly building material. University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison spinoff\u00a0Alithic\u00a0is leveraging this unique formula to turn waste streams from liabilities into profits, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":13132,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[103],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-13130","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-madison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/13130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=13130"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwtest.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=13130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}