Material discovery of secondary and natural cementitious precursors

Cement production contributes to over 6% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, driven by clinker’s energy-intensive production and limestone calcination. Substituting clinker with cementitious substitutes is an effective strategy for decarbonization. However, typical clinker substitutes---coal fly ash and ground granulated blast furnace slag---face current and future supply constraints. Here we systematically map reactivity variations and expand the repertoire of secondary and natural cementitious precursors. Large language models extract chemical compositions and material types of 14,000 materials from 88,000 academic papers. A multi-headed neural network predicts the degree of cementitious reactivity and pozzolanicity. Subject to performance constraints, current supply allows for substituting half of global cement production with construction and demolition wastes and municipal solid waste incineration ash, reducing the global GHG emissions by 3%---equating to removing 260 million vehicles from the roads in United States. Discovered natural cementitious precursors, including rhyolite, dacite, and gabbro, are distributed globally and show significant potential as raw substitutes for clinker.