Rapid urbanization, aging infrastructure, and decarbonization pressures require transformative solutions to achieve a truly sustainable built environment. This project addresses these challenges through a novel interdisciplinary approach that links agricultural production in Pennsylvania (PA) and concrete manufacturing into a new regional supply model for low-CO2 building materials. More specifically, this project aims to convert abundant crop residues, such as corn stover, and emerging biomass feedstocks, such as switchgrass, into ash-based cement substitutes. The project achieves this aim through an interdisciplinary approach. The social science component will more deeply understand whether farmers are willing and able to supply these residues under real operating constraints; meanwhile, the engineering component will test whether the residues can be processed into reliable cement substitutes with measurable performance benefits. More specifically, we investigate a new CO2-based pretreatment that improves combustion efficiency and enhances the quality of the resulting ash for use in durable concrete. This integrated approach directly advances the program’s call by combining rural sociology, agricultural systems, materials chemistry, and construction innovation and positions Penn State as a leader in solving national real estate challenges in sustainability. The dissemination plan of this project engages external stakeholders to connect researchers with growers, biomass users, and real estate professionals around a shared built-environment concern and, therein, a potential solution. The near-term outputs are aligned with the seed program’s goals, namely: (1) preliminary data on biomass feedstock availability to inform a granular national supply model, and (2) proof-of-concept processing routes for improved performance of ash-based cement substitutes that can support future external proposals and industry partnerships. In short, the project transforms biomass feedstocks into regional assets that could strengthen supply chains, reduce embodied carbon, and create new value for PA real estate development through a more sustainable construction sector.

The project’s broader significance lies in its potential to create a practical, scalable pathway from crop residue to a market-relevant construction product. Interviews with PA farmers will generate a bottom-up understanding of residue management, competing uses, labor and soil health constraints, and openness to participating in a new concrete manufacturing chain. The team will also test a novel CO2-based pretreatment in an attritor mill, using controlled processing conditions to convert problematic alkali and alkaline earth metals into carbonates. This will reduce deleterious slagging affecting biomass energy systems during combustion and generate ash that can be used as a cement substitute in sustainable real estate development. Together, these efforts will support external funding opportunities, namely: (1) an accurate supply map of emerging and existing biomass feedstocks that leverages farmer attitudes; and, (2) a feasible CO2-capturing and effective process to manufacture cement substitutes from these important feedstocks. Through this innovation, real estate developers and owners, who increasingly need low-CO2 and regionally sourced concrete materials for more highly desirable real estate markets and certifications, such as LEED. This project provides evidence that concrete materials can be supplied consistently and perform reliably through bio-based markets and manufacturing processes. By engaging real estate partners in dissemination and framing the work around regional market adoption, the project moves beyond the laboratory scale and toward field implementation. Furthermore, it creates a strong foundation for future funding and partnerships by demonstrating a true integration between agriculture, engineering, and industry to solve complex sustainability challenges in the built environment.