Project description
Paving the way towards greener, more sustainable roads
Roads play a crucial role in modern society, enabling transportation and fostering economic activity. However, their construction and maintenance come with significant environmental consequences. The extraction and transport of raw materials, along with the production of asphalt, contribute to resource depletion and greenhouse gas emissions. Despite advancements, the predominant use of asphalt in road infrastructure underscores the urgent need for sustainable alternatives. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the BioROAD2 project aims to revolutionise road construction practices. By leveraging circular economy principles, it aims to recycle asphalt and integrate bio-waste and by-products into new paving materials. This approach reduces reliance on resources and minimises environmental impact.
Objective
Roads are indispensable to our daily lives, promoting mobility and supporting socio-economic interactions. However, the impact caused during their construction (i.e. extraction and transport of raw materials, and production) cannot be disregarded. Moreover, asphalt will be used for the next decades in road infrastructures because of its pragmatic applicability; therefore, it is crucial to identify ways to mitigate their environmental influence and make them more sustainable.
The BioROAD2 project seeks to participate in the ongoing research by applying circular economy principles encouraging the reuse/ recycling of asphalt and bio-waste and bio-by-products – often limited due to regulations, performance blockers, and technological challenges – into new paving materials to decrease the use of virgin and fossil resources. It also aims to emphasise the benefits of low-energy-consuming processes fostering the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and related issues. BioROAD2 will highlight the overall benefits of all phases of pavement development, including its circularity, often neglected during the R&D phase.
Therefore, BioROAD2 will adopt an integrated approach ensured by a three-pillar R&I strategy including (1) Requirements definition, (2) Experimental studies through Design and Characterisation combined with (3) Sustainability assessments addressing the technical, environmental and socio-economic compatibility. The objectives are to (i) specify and document the criteria for the materials and suitable use area validation and propose a unique, flexible, and verifiable self-devised method supported by literature; (ii) produce samples, verify their recyclability and identify the best mixtures; and (iii) conduct rigorous sustainability assessments for the selected mixtures and translate the results into knowledge that can be exploited as a generalised approach for biobased and recycled paving materials with optimised and advanced durability for road infrastructures.
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.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques.
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwaste managementwaste treatment processesrecycling
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinator
2000 Antwerpen
Belgium