Roadmap to an Afrocentric Graphene Ecosystem in the South African Cement and Concrete Industry: Fid-Bau Portal

Roadmap to an Afrocentric Graphene Ecosystem in the South African Cement and Concrete Industry

van Wyk, Abraham / Combrinck, Riaan

It is projected that Africa’s population will increase from 1 billion to more than 2.4 billion people by 2050. Thus, the projected population growth and rapid urbanization will place tremendous pressure on Africa’s existing urban infrastructure and escalate the demand for new infrastructure developments. The escalation for new infrastructure development will only further enlarge the carbon footprint of the African cement and concrete industry. Solutions like graphene provide the opportunity for a reduced carbon footprint as well as economic stimulation through a global emerging market. This study aims to develop an overarching strategy to establish an Afrocentric graphene ecosystem in the South African cement and concrete industry. This was done by conducting a SWOT analysis of graphene which was then used to lay out a roadmap to be followed to achieve the mentioned aim. The findings of the SWOT analysis indicated that although graphene provides drastic improvements to the material properties of cement-based materials, it is currently not financially viable since graphene needs to be imported. However, the South African cement and concrete industry is identified as the access point to implement graphene at a large scale due to the large quantity of cement and concrete consumed by the South African build environment. Thus, the cement and concrete industry is seen as the catalyst to drive down the cost of graphene. In addition, South Africa is twenty years behind developed economies and lacks the sophisticated infrastructure to manufacture and implement graphene along with industry specialists to service the market. Thus, by focusing on four critical short-term focal points namely manufacturing, understanding, implementing and marketing, South Africa has the opportunity to develop an Afrocentric graphene eco-system. However, this would require South Africa to move swiftly and intently to seize the opportunity graphene presents.