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A message from John Harrison I am Australian and founded TecEco in the late 90's. By 1999 I had invented and tested a magnesium cement system which included Eco-Cement that set by absorbing CO2 and in March 2002 I made it publicly clear that the built environment was the ideal repository for CO2 as minerals and immense global interest ensued. Many, driven by greed, have copied and some unscrupulously re-patented or renamed the technologies I developed causing me to nearly go broke during this period with the effort. If I mentioned it first on this web site the technology is copyright and in most cases free to use with permission and acknowledgment. We now have runaway global warming and the need for massive abatement and sequestration is urgent. I hope to get more involved as the problem must be solved and I still have a few good technology ideas to give the world. I seek nothing but peace of mind knowing that I have done what I need to do. Like anybody else, I have to earn enough to be able to allocate the time it takes. What I deliver to the world must be profitable or changes needed in the moleconomic flows under our supply and waste chains will not happen The technology paradigm defines what is or is not a resource. Other than the range of magensium cements I invented years ago in the 1990's which remain under their original categorisations for now I will discuss new technology ideas to reduce waste by converting them to resources under the more logical headings Syncarb, Carbonsafe and Gaia Engineering. As this categorisation is new, the website needs considerable work which I hope to get to with funding. Syncarb is about smart ways to capture carbon in thermodynamically stable forms. Carbonsafe is about creating economic value storing carbon.in stable forms and TecEco cements are all CarbonSafe technologies. As aggregate is over 80% of most concretes making carbonate aggregate would achieve significant sequestration. I therefore suggest a CarbonSafe technology for making aggregate from the output of a Syncarb process such as . Gaia Engineering is about harnessing green technologies that will contribute to our long term survival on spaceship earth. Floods, fires strong winds, high and low temperatures are the heralds of the changes happening. We have to think of new and better ways of doing what we do as well as new things to do that will prolong the life of earth as we knew it. There is no such place as "away" and the word waste will hopefully one day be forgotten as it is possible for us to thrive within a closed system in our own technosphere with no unbalanced outputs of wastes to global commonses including that of CO2. It is imperitive we reverse what many think is a 6th extinction event for the planet. Nature is a frugal economist and we understand that. CO2 is still an insufficiently utilised resource that is a problem in the atmospheric commons and a big contributor to our sustainability problems. The logical things to do is find thermodynamically stable uses for it. I am encourage by what is becoming a rush toward sustainable energy from the sun (wind, hydro, wave and solar) as cheap and abundant energy will allow us to run flexible sequestration and abatement processes that reverse undesirable moleconomic flows in the waste chain, particularly whenever there is excess energy. With it we can push electrons where they do not want to go. Around the coils of my dreamed of electric car would be a good place for electricity to go for me! I advocate low off peak electricity prices rather than the waste of energy currently occuring. In the past year I have caught up on recent papers on sequestration and about technologies I invented. They have not added much to our knowledge and Google seem to be acting as a guide with no knowledge. We already have new pages under the heading Syncarb about creating thermodynamically stable carbonates from brine wastewater, Under carbonsafe about creating value added product s including carbon such as carbonates produced in Syncarb processes. Pages on Gaia Engineering are being re-written to focus on green product supply & waste chains. If anybody out there wants to assist there is plenty to do. First on the list is to register as a charity and obtain tax concession status around the world Promotion is essential to get those dollars flowing in the right directions.

 

The TecEco Web Site

Welcome to a global hub for sustainable technologies including the original magnesium cements patented by John Harrison:

• Tec-Cement - A more durable cement for pre-mix concrete that greatly reduces shrinkage.
• Eco-Cement - Environmentally friendly cement that sets by absorbing CO2.
• Enviro-Cement - A superior cement for toxic and hazardous waste immobilisation.
• Tec-Kiln - A more efficient kiln for making making calcium and magnesium oxides used in TecEco cements from their carbonates without releases.
• Syncarb - Processes for sequestering CO2 from the air to make thermodynamically stable compounds.
• CarbonSafe - Processes for creating products from sequestered CO2 and for including including as much waste as possible.
• Gaia Engineering - Focussing of technogies and products with more sustainable supply & waste chains. The term includes Syncarb and Carbonsafe processes.

Humans are overwhelming just about everything else living on on the planet. Population growth is out of control. Unfortunately some misinformed politicians think this is a good thing. It isn't

I am confident that using abundant energy from the sun (solar, tide, wind and hydro) driving new processes we can at least correct the imbalance in the atmosphere. By mimicking nature we can profitably use CO2 in our every day activities such as building and construction. The profit made will guarantee that it happens. Forget CO2 absorbtion towers, they are not powered by profit, and burying the gas underdround has too many potential legacy issues.

By morphing TecEco into a not for profit if we can attract enough funding we will fund research in the right direction and finance companies lke Syncarb Pty Ltd and Carbonsafe Pty. Ltd. formed to undertake sequestration and product development projects respectively that are part of an ambitious and politically acceptable solution to the problems of global warming, water and waste. Together with other Gaia Engineering projects we can save our planet by for example turning carbon dioxide and other wastes into resources thereby changing materials flows and thus underlying damaging moleconomic flows including that of CO2. Profitable processes for sequestration guarantee success.

Under the Syncarb heading is a process similar to the Solvay process for making carbonate. Sequestering carbon dioxide using the magnesium, calcium and sodium contained in for example brine, bitterns, desal or oil process water makes sense and we have experimented in our "lab"using "green" ammonia made electrolytically or from poo or naturally highly alkaline brines such as in the Cabeço de Vide region of Portugal rather than sodium hydroxide, the production of which has a high CO2 load and which is toxic other than low concentration. Syncarb is simple unpatentable schoolyard chemistry and a lot more common sense than what I have read lately.

Gaia Engineering involves technical innovation. Any truly sustainable process with a sustainable environmentally friendly supply and waste chains we refer tp as Gaia Engineering. Our contributions include a pyro process that is much more efficient and can be run in association with cement manufacture and a method of accelerating the formation of beach rock.

The solution to our problems with carbon dioxide and other wastes is to invent technical paradigms that convert them to resources. Resource use is driven by markets and by creating a market for man made carbonate elligable companies for our assistance, properly funded, will provide essential technical supply chain change.

The Mission

Our mission is to solve global environmental problems including excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, waste, water shortages, pollution etc. etc.. We are hoping following this dream will leave the world a better place.

Please help fund TecEco in it's new role. My wife and I dream of a not for profit publically funded research centre to invent, test and proliferate new 'green' technolgies.

Humans are too many and our influence too great. We must therefore fervently accept our role of maintaining “spaceship earth” [1] as planetary engineers and find ways of maintaining the level of carbon dioxide, oxygen and other gases in the atmosphere at desirable levels and a lot more besides or ultimately perish in what would be a sixth extinction event for the planet.

Our technical world, the techno-sphere, is not a closed system and our take and waste impacts are disturbing the homeostasis of earth systems. As in natural ecological systems we must learn how to make our outputs our inputs and achieve balance. See many of John Harrison's past lectures to find out more about the way we think..

There is a good chance of preserving the future if we mimic nature by finding uses for carbon and other wastes that are profitable. Building with anthropogenically created man made carbonate and wastes is politically acceptable, doable, invokes a market that is insatiable, large and indefinitely continuing and most likely presents the only viable option we have for getting the CO2 balance right and saving the planet from runaway global warming.

What our Peers Think About our Ideas

The New Scientist Magazine were the first to herald some of our technology as a major breakthrough“There is a way to make our city streets as green as the Amazon Forest. Almost every aspect of the built environment from bridges to factories to tower blocks, and from roads to sea walls, could be turned into structures that soak up carbon dioxide – the main greenhouse gas behind global warming. All we need to do it is the change the way we make cement.” [2]

The Guardian, Toronto Star and numerous authors from prestigious universities around the world have likewise heralded the technology we nvented as an important new breakthrough. This acceptance has been echoed at learned institutions such as at Cambridge University where researchers had this to say.

“One area of research into partial cement replacements is the recently emerged family of reactive magnesia (MgO) cements. These cement formulations, developed and patented a few years ago by the Australian scientist John Harrison, (refs given) are blends of PC and reactive MgO in different proportions depending on the intended application, ranging from structural concrete to porous masonry units. They have been developed with strong emphasis on a range of sustainability advantages over PC and have received significant publicity including coverage in New Scientist and The Guardian." [3]

Please note that we had to give up the patents because we could not afford them. Follow the formulations provided and our cements work.

Thanks to all those that have fiddled with john Harrison's cement technology, discovered more about overcoming kinetic barriers for the progression to magnesite and other good things. It is flattering that some have event renamed it and even pretended to invent it! Unfortunately few have considered making them greener by providing enconomic CO2 capture processes during manufacture which could be done for calcium based Portland cement as well. A route from magnesium hydroxide may eliminate that depending on the source. Many hydraulic cements now contain low temperature manufactured reactive magneisum oxide (rMgO) and are better for it. Even hydrated magesium carbonates can be used as they slowly progress to magnesite in concretes.

Apology

Good new. My wife Frankie Frosyth reads very quickly and has agreed to be the secretary and read through thousands of unanswered emails. We apologise that we cannot answer everybody interested in sustainability and using technologies John Harrison developed. Until we are able to secure funding this is just not possible. When we have morphed to a not for profit one of our main missions will be to service enquiries better and to convince governments and large companies that a long term solution to the global warming problem must involve a technical capacity to remove CO2 from the air profitably. If you are determined to use TecEco technology to build an exemplar or help us by providing research and development funds please phone John Harrison and he will endeavour to answer you. (See Contact and Involvement)

The State of the Science

It is the 19th April 2022 and I have skimmed hundreds of papers in the last few days which is all the time I can afford without funding. They are written by students and carry the name of their professors (some of whom I know) and mostly take a fish bowl view of the science covered on this web site years ago in what I said in my prescriptions for Tec, Eco and Enviro cements. Call them rMgO or RMC cements if you like! Here you will find how to optimise rMgO cements and blends of them with other hydraulic compositions dominated by Portland cements.

The level of plagerism is ridiculous and infuriating. The old and known become new again and again. Some of the science is interesting enough but smart science is not really what we need right now. We need common sense science. For example, one paper I will not name talked about using magnesium acetate as an excelerator. I have no doubt that in nature organic substances play a role but the economics and carbon cost are not mentioned and are totally prohibitive. Another paper made a song an dance about weakening concrete over about 8% addition. I don't remember ever formulating a commercial Tec-Cement over about 9% addition of rMgO and prefered a lower percentage. Flyash and/or blast furnace slag was always used and together with pc and rMgO my formulations could achieve much faster strength gain and significantly greater strengths. There was alsways much less shrinkage and the rheology was fantastic. See the formulations in the presentation An Update on Tececo Technology for an example.

Magnesium cements have achieved litle of their promise because there is no sequestration attached to them. We can not only make cement and concrete with much better properties in the past. We can eliminate emissions altogether from the industry and I invite you to read our Syncarb, CarbonSafe and Gaia Engineering pages.

The Future

The technology is now well known and the original TecEco company has no funds or funding and will be used for other purposes to trade out it's losses as it required before it can be wound up. A new not for profit company will take over the name it is currently holding for this web site and will hopefully one day will be the name for a "not for profit" research centre for new green technologies..