CarbonCure

Concrete is the most widely used material in the world after water, yet cement manufacturing, a key ingredient in concrete, is one of the largest sources of global CO₂ emissions. If cement production were a country, it would rank as the third-largest emitter behind China and the United States.

Founded in 2012 in Nova Scotia, CarbonCure Technologies has developed a breakthrough system that injects precise doses of captured CO₂ during concrete manufacturing. The gas mineralizes instantly, becoming permanently embedded in the material. This process not only reduces the carbon footprint but also improves the concrete’s compressive strength, allowing producers to reduce cement usage and further cut emissions.

CarbonCure’s long-term mission is to reduce and remove 500 million metric tons of CO₂ from the atmosphere annually.

The Challenge: Connecting Hardware Across the Concrete Lifecycle

To date, CarbonCure’s customers have delivered more than 3.5 million truckloads of concrete infused with its technology, avoiding over 226,000 metric tons of CO₂ emissions. Achieving these results requires complete visibility into the concrete lifecycle to identify every opportunity for efficiency.

“This perspective allows CarbonCure to examine the entire process and pipeline of concrete development to identify potential for efficiency in terms of reducing the carbon footprint,” said Brad Vickers, Sr. Director of Engineering.

CarbonCure’s equipment can be retrofitted into an existing plant in a single visit. The CarbonCure Valve Box connects to an onsite CO₂ tank, automatically injecting the correct dose into fresh concrete or reclaimed wash water. The Control Box integrates with plant batching software, providing real-time visibility into the manufacturing process.

“It’s a process that needs continuous innovation and deployment of hardware,” Vickers added.

“[Our Design Partner] NeuronicWorks, had worked with Soracom in the past and pointed us to the company. [They] said that the experience was great.”

Brad Vickers

Sr. Director of Engineering

CarbonCure

The Solution: Real-Time Telemetry Powered by Soracom Beam

Each CarbonCure installation is built as a distributed wireless system. Field units mounted near mixing equipment control the injection process and gather operational data, which is synced to CarbonCure’s command center in real time.

“We can easily see the status of the device, ensure that everything is working correctly, and monitor injection status,” said Stamadianos. “Seeing how much CO₂ goes into every batch of concrete, we can generate carbon credits. Using the data matched with batching information, we can analyze the mix design for its efficiency.”

To collect this data securely — especially from remote sites without internet access — CarbonCure turned to Soracom.

“Our hardware design partner, NeuronicWorks, had worked with Soracom in the past and pointed us to the company,” said Stamadianos. “I saw that with Soracom Beam, we could easily and readily configure the device to talk with an SSL connection. That made our security solution simpler because we no longer needed to manage certificates. Soracom also gave us the ability to use secure web sockets.”

With Soracom Beam, CarbonCure avoided the complexity of building and maintaining a VPN-based architecture, ensuring secure bidirectional communication between field devices and the cloud while supporting global scalability.

The Outcome: Scaling a World-Changing Technology

More than one million truckloads of concrete have now been delivered using CarbonCure’s system. In April 2021, the company won the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, a 54-month global competition for breakthrough carbon utilization technologies, and has since been recognized for its safety standards and role in major construction projects such as Amazon HQ2 and the LinkedIn Middlefield Campus.

“There’s a lot of potential to build infrastructure that helps CarbonCure scale past their existing PLC solution and create options to help both smaller and larger concrete producers become more sustainable,” said Stamadianos. “The solution that we have is strong, but we need to keep rolling it out and iterating upon it to fully maximize its potential. It’s about continually solving problems and ensuring that we have the hardware and software infrastructure to keep evolving.”

With Soracom as a connectivity partner, CarbonCure can focus on advancing its technology and expanding its reach to help the concrete industry meet the demands of a sustainable future.