Innovative Materials in the Building Industry: Reducing Building Energy and Minimising Environmental Impacts

Dear Colleague, 

The building and construction sector contributes up to 40% of CO₂ emissions, consumes more than 50% of all extracted materials, and is the largest consumer of raw materials. The solutions to reduce these figures lie in i) a more efficient use of raw materials, both at the beginning and the end of their life cycle; ii) an industrial symbiosis, whereby waste from one sector can serve as a feed for another; and iii) the implementation of a circular economy approach in which all stages, including the design phase, consider how products can be retained in the chain for as long as possible, and, after a certain period of use, how they can be reused or recycled, thus maintaining or even increasing their initial value. Many national and international research projects deal with the topics described above, and they offer novel and efficient solutions in reducing the embedded energy, introducing novel functionalities, and minimizing the environmental impact throughout the life cycle of building materials and structures in buildings both new and old (including historical ones).

This Special Issue aims to cover recent research and advances in the field of energy-efficient and environmentally friendly building materials.

Contributions related to, but not limited to, the following topics are welcome:

• Development of new energy-efficient building materials (e.g., insulating materials, bio-based building materials)
• Development of new eco/green building materials for different construction applications
• Recycled materials/industrial symbiosis (e.g., alkali-activated materials, immobilization of nonhazardous and hazardous waste in building composites, cascade recycling through the extraction of critical raw materials, soil stabilization, and soil remedy)
• Innovative composites
• Long-term performance of new and recycled building materials
• Results from laboratory developments, up-scaling projects (EU and national projects, industrial projects), and case studies from relevant industrial projects
• Circular economy approach and new business models in the building sector
• Methodology and guidelines regarding the production and use of novel products in the field
• Sustainability and life-cycle analysis (LCA) of building materials
• Legislation and barriers restricting market uptake

Research articles, case studies, review papers, and short communications are welcome. We do hope that these contributions will give an overview of the best available praxis and, consequently, promote their application.

We would, therefore, like to invite you to submit your contributions to this Special Issue and to share this call for papers with your colleagues.

Dr. Vilma Ducman
Prof. Adriana Bernardi
Ass. Prof. Ana Mladenovic
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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