Building a Greener Future: India’s First Sugarcane Made School

India's construction industry may witness a groundbreaking development as plans for the first-ever building constructed from Sugarcrete, a low-carbon alternative to bricks and concrete made from sugarcane by-products, are underway. This innovative school project aims to utilize bagasse from sugar mills to produce Sugarcrete, presenting a cost-effective and sustainable alternative to conventional concrete.

The proposed school, one or two storeys high, would employ a high compression strength version of Sugarcrete with a silica binder. By diversifying the applications of bagasse, the company aims to take advantage of existing production lines in sugar mills. Tests conducted at UEL revealed that Sugarcrete blocks are four to five times lighter than concrete blocks, with a curing time of just one week compared to the 28 days required for concrete production.

The University of East London's (UEL) Master of Architecture and Sustainability Research Institute, with the support of Tate & Lyle Sugars, has developed Sugarcrete, which combines bagasse, the leftover sugarcane fibers after sugar sap extraction, with bespoke sand-mineral binders. These bricks have an estimated 20% carbon footprint compared to traditional bricks.

Sugarcrete's debut technical application was recently announced—a prototype demountable floor slab made from interlocking Sugarcrete blocks, developed in collaboration with Grimshaw Architects. Encouraged by the promising results, UEL is in discussions with a company interested in constructing a school near a sugarcane plantation in India.

Armor Gutierrez Rivas, senior lecturer in architecture at UEL, highlighted the rising costs and environmental implications of traditional building materials. He emphasized that for the price of one brick, approximately 30 kilos of bagasse could be obtained. The interested company is keen to explore the structural capacity of Sugarcrete and is seeking a solution that addresses both cost and sustainability concerns.

In terms of embodied carbon, Sugarcrete significantly outperforms traditional materials. It boasts an eight-fold reduction compared to the average UK brick and a 4.5-fold reduction compared to concrete, based on embodied carbon figures from the ICE database (assuming local production within sugar cane plantation communities).

Sugarcane is the world's largest crop by production volume, generating nearly two billion tonnes annually and resulting in approximately 600 million tonnes of bagasse fiber as a by-product. The development of Sugarcrete presents an opportunity to utilize this abundant waste product, contributing to the sustainability goals of the construction industry.

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The Sugarcrete prototype floor slab, developed by Grimshaw, offers several advantages. It is demountable, reusable, and fire-resistant. The system, based on Abeille's 1699 design for dry assembly flat vaults, employs interlocking components that transfer loads across the slab between blocks, reducing the steel content by up to 90%. This versatile system can be used for floors or ceilings and is easy to cast and assemble by hand, requiring no complex or specialized tools.

With the potential to revolutionize the construction industry in India and beyond, Sugarcrete offers a sustainable and cost-effective alternative to traditional building materials. The collaboration between UEL, Tate & Lyle Sugars, and Grimshaw Architects showcases the power of innovation and highlights the importance of environmentally conscious solutions in addressing the challenges faced by the construction sector.

Source-The Riba Journal

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