By rosebell
In order to developing and commercialising a low-carbon grout that could decrease the environmental impact of tunneling projects, the University of East London (UEL) and Strabag UK are collaborating and intends to transform construction and agriculture waste into sustainable grout.
Using repurposed construction waste and biowaste from the sugar industry, this 26-month project is due to replace traditional cement-heavy annulus grout with a sustainable alternative and the new product is expected to cut embodied carbon by over than 61% compared with conventional formulations.
The formulation partially replaces cement, superplasticisers and retarders with excavated tunneling material, filter cake from water treatment processes and agricultural by-products.
Being supervised by UEL’s Dr Arya Assadi Langroudi, associate professor in geotechnical engineering, this project is soppurted by a £216,000 Innovate UK-funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP).
With the aim of translating laboratory research into practical, industry-ready solutions, a dedicated KTP associate is going to work within Strabag UK.
According to James Keegan, Strabag UK’s director of environment, sustainability and innovation: “The project strengthened the company’s innovation portfolio and its ambition to be climate neutral by 2024. We all recognise the challenge of enhancing circularity, resource efficiency and the sustainability of materials used in construction. This partnership enables cross-industry collaboration to trial and evidence a scalable, lower-carbon alternative to conventional grout that maintains the technical performance needed for complex underground works.”
