What is the University of California Pavement Research Center?

The Partnered Pavement Research Center (PPRC) is operated by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and the University of California Pavement Research Center (UCPRC). Its inception was meant to provide timely, high-quality data, analysis, and technology needed to support decision-making by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and other partners. The vision of UCPRC is ensuring Caltrans and other partners will have continuously improving stateof-the-art pavement technology to maximize the level of service to all users of California’s pavements, while optimizing the results from expenditures on pavement infrastructure and minimizing the environmental impacts.

How is Purebase’s SCM Blend involved?

Recently, UCPRC launched the Sustainable Concrete Lab-to-Slab initiative, aimed towards advancing sustainable concrete technology by accelerating the implementation of more sustainable binders for structural, pavement, minor, and other concrete applications for real-world applications in pilot projects and mainstream construction. Purebase was personally invited and has provided its SCM Blend, derived from pozzolanic metakaolin, for the first test track of this initiative. The project focuses on evaluating low-carbon cements and supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) beyond traditional coal fly ash and slag. “We are dedicated to evaluating the performance of these materials and helping government and private project owners accelerate their implementation.”

Purebase attends Second Annual Cement & Concrete Decarbonization Meeting

Purebase Corp enjoyed taking part in the second annual Cement and Concrete Decarbonization Meeting, hosted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) from July 29th to the 31st in Golden, Colorado.

We had the opportunity to meet up with our colleagues from across the country who represent technology start-ups, investors, and academia while getting the chance to discuss our role in accelerating the transition to low-carbon cement and concrete solutions.

What’s in our backyard?

As Purebase Corporation is located in lone, CA, so is a historical landmark that has an interesting background.

The Preston Castle, originally known as the Preston School of Industry, was constructed in 1890 with the purpose of rehabilitating, rather than simply imprisoning, juvenile of-fenders. The bricks for the building were made at San Quentin and Folsom prisons using sandstone that was quarried six miles from lone, where they were then delivered by rail at 6,000 bricks per car.

What are EPD’s and why are they important?

An EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) is an environmental transparency report that testifies objective, comparable and third-party verified data about products and services’ environmental performances from a lifecycle perspective. Whereas the EPD score is the final declaration of a product, the foundation of any EPD score is the life cycle assessment (LCA). This LCA allows you to evaluate your product’s environmental performance over its entire life cycle. It typically takes into consideration your full value chain, from material extraction to manufactured product, its usage stage and end of life. 

The History of America’s Independence Day

“May it be to the world, what I believe it will be … the signal of arousing men to burst the chains … and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form, which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. …For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.”

Metakaolin – The super pozzolan

We’ve talked about Purebase’s pozzolanic metakaolin, our supplementary cementitious material (SCM) that can replace Portland cement up to 20%, and our high-performance SCM, which can replace up to 40% cement in a concrete mix design. These materials ultimately can reduce a vast portion of greenhouse gases caused by the production of cement. But what exactly is a pozzolan; what is the difference between raw pozzolans and calcined pozzolans, and what classification does our metakaolin land in?

What are pozzolans?

A pozzolan is a siliceous or siliceous and aluminous material that, in itself, possesses little or no cementitious value but will, in finely divided form and in the presence of moisture, chemically react with calcium hydroxide at ordinary temperatures to form compounds having cementitious properties. It is therefore classified as supplementary cementitious material (SCM). There are both natural (ACI 232.1R) and artificial (fly ash, ACI 232.2R, and silica fume, ACI 234R) pozzolans.1

Giving you the Purebase Advantage 

With springtime here and the weather warming up significantly over the next couple of months, Purebase’s agriculture division would like to remind our readers of our agricultural-based product that was developed to assist in sustainable, organic farming practices. It is organically certified and registered with the California Department of Food and Agriculture. 

• Shade Advantage is a clay-based plant protectant that manages the negative effects of crop stress due to intense heat and sun damage.
• Made from 95% kaolin clay, Shade Advantage forms a barrier coating on crops that reflects and diffuses harmful ultraviolet light, while also allowing useable light to come through.
• Provides sun protection to foliage, vegetables, fruits, nuts and most row crops. • Reducing sunburn damage may improve both crop yield and overall crop quality.

Purebase’s low-carbon cement/concrete vision moves forward

With US Mine Corporation (USMC) being the supplier of the material needed for Purebase’s supplementary cementitious material (SCM), the construction of a pre-concentration plant (PCP), otherwise known as a density separator plant, is now complete and in production. With Purebase having access to USMC’s vast resource reserve, the separator plant will ensure a high volume of commercial production of kaolin clay. This is a critical step in Purebase’s SCM operations, as the kaolin clay will be the main ingredient in producing the calcined clay (metakaolin) for use in low-carbon cement and concrete.