Abstract:

The cement industry accounts for around 8% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions today, while industries like copper and aluminum produce slags (residues) in the range of 100 million tons (approx.) annually. Do we have a possible synergy? Our group at KU Leuven tries to develop processes to transform these residues from the metallurgical industries into reactive materials or use them as they are to reduce the cement content in concrete systems. Since such problems present a plethora of challenges, we have explored an interdisciplinary spectrum of solutions ranging from high-temperature vitrification of residues (transforming them into reactive glasses) to blending copper slags with a mix of limestone and Portland cement. Recently, we have also started using modern experimental design techniques and optimization algorithms to holistically evaluate our processes in terms of performance, cost, and carbon footprint. The talk aims to give a brief overview of the aforementioned topics and discuss potential solutions.

Brief Biography:

Debadri Som is a PhD student working at the Department of Materials Engineering, KU Leuven, on sustainable construction materials. Formerly, he was a Master’s student at the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and a Bachelor’s student in Civil Engineering at the Indian Institute of Engineering Science and Technology, Shibpur. He has worked on a variety of projects related to construction materials, such as recycling concrete aggregates, 3D printable concrete mixes, and mathematical optimization of ternary blended systems