Project description
Enhancing wood’s fire resistance
Wood, a renewable construction material, holds immense potential for sustainable future environments. Yet, its combustibility poses a significant challenge. Traditional fire retardants have drawbacks, including toxicity and leaching issues. Current methods often involve costly set-ups or harmful chemicals, but nature’s solution lies in biologically induced mineralisation. While bacteria have received attention, fungi remain relatively unexplored. In this context, the EU-funded MICRO-INSERT project will use fungi as carriers for calcium carbonate precipitation, developing a bio-inspired mineralisation process. This innovative treatment will transform wood into hierarchically structured organic–inorganic hybrid materials, enhancing fire resistance and promoting sustainability. Additionally, the project fosters research collaboration, knowledge transfer and skill development, ensuring a greener, safer future for construction materials.
Objective
Wood is the only renewable construction material and holds great promise for sustainable built environments of the future. However, its combustibility is a major limitation. The drawback of using traditional fire and flame retardants is the toxicity and volatility of some of their components and the loss of chemicals by leaching, leading to poorer performance. Mineralisation of wood offers a green alternative, but current strategies often require a costly technical setup for supercritical gases or the use of harmful chemicals to achieve the deposition of minerals deep inside the wood structure. Biologically induced mineralisation is a widespread phenomenon occurring in all kingdoms of life. In recent years, microbially induced calcium carbonate (CaCO3) precipitation has been proposed as a potential solution to address many environmental and engineering issues related to the enhancement of inorganic materials (protection of concrete, soil consolidation). However, the potential for using fungi has received relatively little attention compared to bacteria. The MICRO-INSERT project will investigate the feasibility of using fungi as CaCO3 carriers to develop a novel bioinspired mineralisation process for biobased building materials. Wood as a highly porous, three-dimensional organic scaffold will be mineralised to create hierarchically structured organic-inorganic hybrid materials with novel properties, including improved fire resistance. The proposed bioinspired treatment incorporates ideas for sustainable materials design, circularity, reduction of toxicity, and lowering the negative impact on the environment. The MICRO-INSERT project will stimulate innovation and knowledge transfer between the host and ER by building a solid research network, organising events, mentoring young researchers, and managing projects. The ER will gain research and scientific skills and acquire a new set of competencies to reach professional maturity and independence after the fellowship.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology bacteriology
- natural sciences chemical sciences inorganic chemistry alkaline earth metals
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology mycology
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries forestry
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.4.1 - Widening participation and spreading excellence
MAIN PROGRAMME
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HORIZON.4.1.5 - Fostering brain circulation of researchers and excellence initiatives
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-WIDERA-2022-TALENTS-04
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
6310 Izola
Slovenia
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.