Smart Cementitious Materials for Sustainable Building Engineering

Dear Colleagues,

Concrete is the most used construction material worldwide, and its annual consumption is estimated at more than 25 billion tons. Due to this huge production, the cement industry is characterized by a very strong environmental impact in terms of CO₂ emissions. It has been estimated that 5 to 7 % of global CO₂ emissions is due to cement production. Cracking is known to be the most challenging problem for the life-cycle performance of cementitious materials, which are inherently weak in tensile strength. Thus, the development of improved durability concretes and alternative binders to Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) are research subjects of pivotal relevance in the field of sustainable building.

Promising strategies to improve the sustainability of concrete are:

- New smart cementitious nanocomposites for health-monitoring of structures, thus increasing both the structural safety and service life of structures;

- Graphene-based cementitious nanocomposites capable of refining the pore structure and reducing flaws and cracks in the cement based matrix;

- The use of alternative binders to OPC, such as geopolymers, with the potential to reduce CO₂ emissions from the cement industry;

- Self-healing cementitious materials.

Dr. Francesca Romana Lamastra
Guest Editor

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