A Dubai-based architect duo is looking to break from conventional building practices with an alternative cement conceived in the salt flats of the UAE and made using a problematic waste material. Wael Al Awar and Kenichi Teramoto, principal architects at waiwai, enlisted the scientific know how of universities in the UAE and Japan to create a cement made using brine generated by the UAE’s desalination plants, which remove salt from seawater. They were inspired by the UAE’s mineral-rich sabkha — salt flats that are part of the country’s wetlands. “It a huge area … that’s often overlooked,” Al Awar told CNN.Sabkha have been used in architecture before: centuries ago, blocks were hewn from salt flats and used to build Siwa, a medieval town in Egypt close to the Libyan border. But rather than mine the delicate sabkha ecosystem, Al Awar and Teramoto turned to waste brine, which contains many of the same minerals.

The freshwater-scarce UAE has one of the largest desalination operations in the world. It produces roughly one fifth of the world’s brine as a byproduct — approximately 28 million cubic meters a day, according to a 2019 UN-backed report. But discharging brine into the sea can harm marine life. Finding uses for desalination brine has come into national focus, prompting the launch of a 3.4 million AED ($930,000) “Rethink Brine Challenge” earlier this year.

Brine contains magnesium minerals. Kemal Celik, an assistant professor of civil and urban engineering at New York University Abu Dhabi and part of a team at the university’s AMBER Lab, extracted a magnesium compound from the liquid, and used it to make the cement. Celik says the cement was cast into blocks, which were then placed in a carbon dioxide chamber to set — an innovation which speeds up the production process. The cement was subjected to testing in the UAE before being sent to Japan, where blocks went through further strength and rigidity tests. In addition, an algorithm was developed to calculate how safe the blocks would be if used in construction, Mika Araki, a structural designer at the University of Tokyo, told CNN. Precast blocks could be used to construct a single-story building “tomorrow,” says Al Awar, but he and Teramoto hope to develop the product further for use in multi-story buildings.

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