Dubai student builds a ping pong table from recycled concrete to test carbon-cured construction material

At 17, Nord Anglia School student Sultan designed a ping pong table made from recycled concrete while interning at Ducon Industries in Dubai. The project is a visible test of carbonation curing, a process that exposes recycled aggregate to CO2 and can store carbon in the material. The table needed a special paint coating so a ping pong ball bounces properly on a concrete surface. Sultan worked with Dr Zaid Ghouleh, founder of Carboclave, and is preparing a paper comparing carbonation-cured recycled concrete blocks with virgin aggregate. If the blocks hold up at commercial scale, they could reduce the need for new quarry material and cut embodied carbon in construction, a major emissions source in the Gulf. No numbers on CO2 uptake per tonne are in the article, so the climate benefit still needs measurement.