Sean Monkman, Ph.D.
SVP Technology Development
CarbonCure Technologies
CO2 Utilization to Improve Ready-Mixed Concrete Sustainability
Improving sustainability within the cement and concrete industry must simultaneously reduce the associated carbon emissions and satisfy the increasing demand for concrete. The beneficial use of carbon dioxide in ready mixed concrete production has been developed and installed as a retrofit technology with industrial users. An optimum dose of CO2 is added to ready mixed concrete during mixing and batching; the in-situ formation of mineralized CaCO3 can increase the compressive strength. A concrete producer can leverage the improved performance to use less cement in the mix designs. The technology is in use at more than 300 concrete plants worldwide.
Sean Monkman, Ph.D.
Sean Monkman is the Senior Vice President of Technology Development for CarbonCure Technologies. He oversees the company’s research and intellectual property efforts as they develop scalable carbon utilization technologies to create more sustainable concrete. Sean holds a PhD in Civil Engineering from McGill University. His career has included more than 25 years working in concrete materials including more than 15 years working on CO2 utilization approaches. Sean has authored more than three dozen papers and presentations on beneficial carbon dioxide utilization in concrete production and is a co-inventor on over 100 issued and pending patents related to the work. He was recognized as the Mission Innovation Champion for Canada at the Fourth Mission Innovation Ministerial (MI-4) in 2019. Sean is active within American Concrete Institute as chair of the Sustainability and Concrete Construction Sustainability Assessor committees, in addition to membership on the Chemical Admixtures, Materials, Nanotechnology, and Performance Criteria committees.