Nature-inspired hierarchical building materials with low CO₂ emission and superior performance

Conventional cement-based materials are faced with significant challenges, including large carbon emissions, high density, and quasi-brittleness. Here, inspired by hierarchical porous structures existing in nature, we develop a low carbon, lightweight, strong and tough cement-based material (LLST), which is obtained by a rapid gelation of hydrogel as skeleton and subsequent deposition of cement hydrates as a skin. As a result, the LLST exhibits hierarchical structure consisting of sponge-like micropores (1 ~ 50 μm) and nanopores (5 ~ 100 nm), without detrimental macropores that compromise light weight, strength, and toughness. Compared with the normal cement paste, LLST displays a 54% reduction in density, 145% and 1365% improvement in specific compressive strength and fracture energy, with only 51% carbon emission. These properties are further investigated with machine learning force field molecular dynamics along with well-tempered metadynamics simulations, indicating that strong chemical bonding is generated at the atomic level between functional groups in the hydrogel and Ca ion released from cement hydration. These findings not only demonstrate a strategy for developing lightweight building materials with low-carbon emission and remarkable mechanical properties, but also provide valuable insights for realizing the coexistence of light weight, strength and toughness by tailoring the hierarchical pore structure.