Construction sand has become one of the most sought-after raw materials worldwide. As the global population grows, demand for sand has tripled, but only a small fraction of the world’s sand deposits is suitable for the construction industry. This is because it must meet specific criteria—it cannot be too round or too fine-grained—and therefore cannot simply be replaced by desert sand, which is available in abundance. The startup Zolarize, a spin-off from the German Aerospace Center in Cologne, has tackled this problem and developed a sustainable, carbon-neutral process for producing construction sand from desert sand. The process uses solar energy and consists of two steps: First, the desert sand is baked together in a sintering process and then broken up using a crusher. The material properties of the resulting granulate even exceed those of construction sand approved in Germany.
