Concrete-intensive construction
Manufacturing lacks innovation and is labor-intensive.
MineravaAdvanced concrete materials
Carbon-storing, passive-cooling concrete
A concrete product platform — not a new cement plant. Built from low-cost, commercially available biominerals that capture CO₂, shed heat, and buffer moisture — for buildings, infrastructure, and data centers.
Shu Yang, PhD — Founder
Professor, Materials Science & Engineering
University of Pennsylvania
Minerava — a hybrid of mineral + Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom and craft.
0 wt%cement replacement
CO₂cure — carbon stored in the material
Drop-incast & precast compatibility
0 m³/yrtargeted supply path
01 The challenge
The built environment needs climate-resilient concrete.
Concrete is the second most-used material on Earth, after water — the foundation beneath our buildings, roads, bridges, and the fast-growing data centers now reshaping our infrastructure. That ubiquity is also its climate problem: cement is one of the largest industrial sources of CO₂.
Embodied carbon pressure
Operators need low-carbon materials to qualify and scale.
Heat emission & water burden
Data centers are costly and energy-intensive, aggravating local government burden and environmental impacts.
The building-materials problem
Current low-carbon concrete options often require a trade-off:
New cement processes
High impact, but often require new manufacturing assets and qualification.
Carbon-cure injection
Reduced carbon emissions, but mostly process-based and limited by curing logistics.
SCM / low-clinker substitution
Drop-in, but feedstock availability and performance vary regionally.
High-design architectures
Efficient, but many approaches are tied to specialized fabrication.
SCM — Supplementary Cementitious Materials
Adoption at scale requires drop-in workflows + ASTM/ACI readiness + scalable supply + measurable carbon impact.
02 What is Minerava?
Green concrete — a product platform,
not a new cement plant.
The material
- Low-carbon concrete formulations using highly abundant, low-cost, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS), carbon-capture/storage materials.
- Bio-derived waste materials, naturally occurring biominerals, and industrial waste SCMs.
- Transforming inexpensive, scalable, and widely available materials into functional concrete through materials science.
The workflow
- Versatile in manufacturing: can be mixed, cast, precast, or 3D-printed.
- Near-term products: blocks, tiles, panels, pavers, pads, hardscape, utility enclosures, façade / rainscreen components.
- Designed for ASTM C39, C78, C1157/C1157M, C1363, and C150-relevant validation.
03 The feedstock
Why minerals and bio-derived materials?
Minerava builds on abundant minerals together with bio-derived and waste materials. Diatomaceous-earth biominerals are a leading example — but one of several feedstocks the platform can draw on.
Low-cost mineral feedstock
Fossilized aquatic silica skeletons, commercially available and already used at industrial scale. Roughly $250–400 per ton.
Efficient carbon-transport function
Micro- and nanoporosity increases surface area and provides pathways for efficient CO₂ uptake and water transport.
Concrete compatibility
Silica (sand) is a common ingredient in concrete. It preserves constructability and mechanical robustness while enabling carbon storage.
Thermal & moisture co-benefits
It also supports moisture absorption/retention and evaporative-cooling co-benefits.
Diatomaceous earth (DE), by the numbers
0tons DE — U.S. production, 2023
0Mtons DE — world production, 2023
0Mtons DE — U.S. reserves
0%silica share of Earth's crust — DE is fossilized silica
04 Scalability
Already demonstrated at meter scale.
Standard concrete mixing. Daily use during demonstration: ~770 kg of material across 13 prints per day.
Minerava is not confined to 3D printing.
- All materials are commercially available and can be mixed like conventional concrete.
- Validated in meter-scale 3D-printed concrete components using standard concrete mixing.
- The same materials can be cast as conventional blocks, tiles, panels, pavers, and pads.
- Materials can be sourced locally and provided by regional suppliers.
- Geometry can be introduced as an optional performance amplifier — not a manufacturing bottleneck.
Scale target: ≥100,000 m³ per year supply path across multiple large-scale sites.
05 Validated science
Carbon capture and storage, validated in meter-scale printed concrete.
Replacing 30% of the cement with diatomaceous-earth (DE) biominerals increased CO₂ absorption while maintaining compressive strength.
Why it matters
- Carbon uptake and storage occur throughout the cementitious material.
- Uses COTS materials that can enter existing concrete supply chains.
- Supports a credible path to ≥30% embodied-carbon reduction through cement replacement plus CO₂ capture/storage.
- Maintains mechanical performance, cost competitiveness, and compatibility with existing construction practices.
Yu et al., Adv. Funct. Mater. 2025, 35 (45), 2509259. Read the paper ↗
06 Architecture
Lattice geometry amplifies carbon capture — with less material.
Lattice geometries make CO₂ uptake more uniform through the structures — while cutting the material each part requires.
0%lower material use with geometry refinement
0%higher surface-area-to-volume ratio
>0%higher CO₂ uptake, preserving mechanical performance
0%higher CO₂ uptake in gradient vs. cast counterparts
The core material–architecture differentiation
- Carbon capture/storage material composition — low-cost COTS.
- Versatile manufacturing forms, demonstrated in meter-scale fabrication.
- Transport-enabling geometry — from nano to macro — to increase carbon-capturing efficiency and reduce material use.
07 Co-benefit
Passive cooling, inspired by elephant skin.
A mockup building envelope under repeated water dosing and infrared heating stayed dramatically cooler than commercial stucco.
DE-cement tiles
~32 °C
Cracked commercial stucco
~42 °C
Non-cracked commercial stucco
~52 °C
- The biomineral enables instant water imbibition.
- Geometry enhances water spreading and retention for evaporative cooling.
08 Co-benefit
A moisture-absorbing, self-cooling wall and skin.
- Reduces condensation on chips and servers.
- Provides evaporative cooling when the room runs hot.
- Reduces relative humidity in the room for human comfort.
Lee, Y., et al., Adv. Funct. Mater. 2025, 35 (46), 2506725. Read the paper ↗
Minerava targets embodied carbon, site-level heat, and moisture management in one construction-material platform.
09 Value proposition
Carbon-storing, passive-cooling, moisture-buffering concrete products for modern infrastructure.
Carbon capture & storage
CO₂ stored throughout the material itself.
>78% reduction
Combined cement replacement and material savings.
Less material
Lattice geometries cut material use without losing strength.
Passive cooling
Evaporative cooling built into the envelope.
Moisture absorption
Humidity buffering for equipment and comfort.
Drop-in production
Works with existing cast and precast workflows.
ASTM/ACI readiness
Designed for standards-based qualification.
Regional supply
Locally sourced feedstocks and producers.
Superior mechanical strength
Performance preserved at high replacement levels.
Environmental benefits
Turning environmental waste into functional structural material.
Quarry by-products
Near-zero-cost local waste feedstock.
10 Impact
Cost, energy, and environmental benefits.
Cost savings
- Largest savings come from waste SCMs, local sourcing, and material-lean geometries.
- 55 wt% waste-SCM replacement lowers cement cost and avoids ~115–175 kgCO₂/m³.
- Quarry fines are a near-zero-cost local waste feedstock.
- Lattice components use up to 78% less material — cutting mass, transport, and embodied carbon.
Energy savings
- Passive cooling reduces envelope and site heat, easing HVAC load.
- A conservative 0.1–1.5% facility-level electricity reduction is ~88–1,314 MWh/year for a 10 MW data center.
- Building-energy modeling and pilot monitoring will quantify the benefit.
Environmental benefits
- Turns environmental waste into functional structural material.
- 30% DE replacement: potential ~170–215 kgCO₂/m³ gross benefit from cement reduction plus measured early CO₂ uptake.
- Third-party LCA / EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) planned.
11 Minerava at work
Mix. Test. Build. Scale.
Prototype design
Formulations + product geometry. Local sourcing.
Standards validation
ASTM C39, C78, C1157, C1363, and C150-relevant testing.
Pilot deployment
Pavers, pads, panels, blocks, façade and hardscape.
Commercialization
Cost, energy efficiency, and life-cycle assessment (LCA).
Goal: generate third-party validated performance, 10–30% reduction of embodied carbon, constructability, thermal benefits, and life-cycle assessment (LCA) data needed for procurement.
12 Competitive landscape
Six capabilities. One platform.
| Approach | Drop-in workflow | Intrinsic CO₂ storage | Passive cooling | Moisture buffering | Durability | Cost saving |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New cement processes | Partial | Depends | No | No | Unclear | Process-dependent |
| CO₂ curing / injection | Yes | Process-limited | No | No | Process-dependent | Unclear |
| SCM / low-clinker blends | Yes | Indirect | No | No | Unclear | Yes |
| Minerava — low-carbon waste SCM, CO₂ capture/storage, 3D printing | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Minerava stores more CO₂, preserves mechanical performance, and reduces material use and cost through high-surface-area lattice geometries — with environmental, passive-cooling, and humidity-buffering co-benefits.
13 The team & partners
Materials science, structural engineering,
and building thermodynamics.
Founder
Shu Yang, PhD
Professor, Materials Science & Engineering, University of Pennsylvania.
Shu Yang Group ↗Partners & collaborators
Masoud Akbarzadeh, AIA, PhD
Associate Professor, PennDesign
Structural geometry; 3D concrete printing.
Polyhedral Structures Laboratory ↗Dorit Aviv, AIA, PhD
Associate Professor, PennDesign
Building thermal analysis; building envelope design.
Thermal Architecture Lab ↗Zheng O'Neill, PhD, PE
Professor, Texas A&M University
HVAC systems; moisture capture and removal, building energy use.
Faculty profile ↗Current partners
- SCM suppliers
- Architecture firm on planning and life-cycle assessment
Additional target partners
- Concrete product manufacturer (in discussion)
- Regional precast and ready-mix producers
- Cement and SCM suppliers
- 3D concrete printing companies
- Data center engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC)
- A/E firms and validation labs
Affiliations & partners
14 News
In the news.
Buildings that cool like African elephants
Inspired by the cracked, water-retaining skin of African elephants, Minerava's cement-based tiles capture and slowly release water to cool building surfaces — no fans, compressors, or moving parts. A feature on the research behind Minerava, from the labs of Shu Yang and Dorit Aviv.
Read the story ↗15 Contact
Get in touch with Minerava.
Interested in pilots, partnerships, licensing, or supply? Send a note and we'll get back to you.