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Upgrading geomaterials: from waste to resource

Project description

Pioneering solutions for sustainable construction

Half of the EU’s waste comes from construction and mining, with a significant portion being waste geomaterials – substances that, without treatment, lack the engineering quality needed for reuse. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the UPGRADE project addresses this challenge by developing protocols, software and tools to improve the properties of these materials, transforming them into sustainable resources for construction. By advancing waste geomaterials’ engineering characteristics, UPGRADE aims to reduce environmental impact, cut costs and support a circular economy. With a multidisciplinary team spanning geotechnics, computer science, geochemistry and environmental studies, UPGRADE fosters an international network of researchers and engineers dedicated to pioneering sustainable solutions in geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering.

Objective

UPGRADE seeks to broaden the research scope of the involved teams, focusing on tackling key challenges in geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering. Specifically, it aims to pioneer innovative solutions for repurposing waste geomaterials generated by construction and mining industries worldwide. Waste geomaterials represents half of the waste volume generated in EU. These waste geomaterials generally exhibit poor engineering characteristics that prevent their direct use at construction/mining sites. However, if adequately treated, they could represent an excellent resource for construction purposes with significant money saving and reduction in the environmental footprint, thus contributing to the establishment of a circular handling/management of geomaterials. To achieve this, UPGRADE will develop protocols, software and tools to improve the engineering characteristics of waste geomaterials, and to guarantee the performance level over the service life of geostructures built from waste geomaterials considering site-specific conditions. The fundamental concern of UPGRADE is to promote strategies for sustainable use of waste geomaterials generated by geoengineering activities, and to determine how to turn a waste geomaterial into a durable material, with a positive revenue stream.
The originality of UPGRADE's approach is that not only it draws expertise on the environment and geotechnics, but also in computer sciences, geochemistry, analytical chemistry, natural resources exploitation, and in the circulatory economy. We intend to form a multidisciplinary consortium composed of 10 academic and 5 industrial beneficiaries and 6 Third Country partners which aim to address this problem. UPGRADE will create an international, interdisciplinary and intersectoral network of creative and innovative researchers and practising engineers ready to face geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering challenges which arise in the vanguard of technological innovation.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-SE - HORIZON TMA MSCA Staff Exchanges

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2023-SE-01

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Coordinator

CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS
Net EU contribution
€ 381 800,00
Address
RUE MICHEL ANGE 3
75794 Paris
France
Region
Ile-de-France Ile-de-France Paris
Activity type
Research Organisations
Links
Total cost
No data

Participants (10)

Partners (10)