Sustainability

The Sustainability group focuses on the development of sustainable cementitious materials based on biological (by) products. Such materials include bacteria-based self-healing concrete and repair products, biomass ash-based binders and natural fibre-based mortars. Furthermore, interactions between the living and built environment are studied, e.g. by integrating free ecosystem functions in the built environment but also by studying detrimental effects of (micro)organisms on construction materials. The sustainability performance of civil engineering materials and constructions is quantified by life-cycle-assessment (LCA) tools.

The Sustainability group is responsible for the bachelor courses 'Sustainability' (part of the course 'Construction Materials and Sustainability'), 'Experiment', the minor 'Sustainable Communities – Integral design of the built environment' and the master course 'Ecological Engineering'.