Project details

SUS-CON (Sustainable, Innovative and Energy-Efficient Concrete, based on the Integration of All-Waste Materials) is a R&D Collaborative Project funded by the European Commission through its 7th Framework Programme. The 4-year project started in January 2012 with the aim at developing completely new concepts and technology routes for the integration of secondary raw materials (aggregates and binders) in the production cycle of concrete (for both ready-mixed and pre-casted applications) to manufacture a sustainable, innovative and energy-efficient concrete all made with secondary materials.

The key objectives and challenges of the Project were:

• to reduce the embodied energy and CO2 footprint of concrete by replacing traditional binders with novel binders from secondary materials;
• to produce novel lightweight aggregates from secondary materials;
• to combine novel aggregates and binders in an energy-efficient lightweight concrete all made of secondary materials with improved thermal insulation properties;
• to add additional performance demands (i.e. thermal insulation) in the design methodology.

At the end of the Project several eco-sustainable concretes recipes, based on innovative aggregates and binders from secondary raw materials, have been suitably designed and developed, targeting specific products.
Pre-casted (50 panels and 1.000 blocks) and ready-mixed (screeds) SUS-CON prototypes have been industrially produced by European construction companies (at Magnetti and Iston plants) and the highly compatibility of SUS-CON concretes with existing production processes was demonstrated.
In addition, performances of SUS-CON prototypes were tested in terms of mechanical, thermal, acoustic insulation properties and fire resistance. The SUS-CON solutions were installed on 3 real demo buildings located in three different European sites (Spain, Turkey and Romania), performances obtainable in terms of energy efficiency of buildings made with SUS-CON concretes were monitored in both hot and cold climate verifying that SUS-CON products result in better insulation performances with respect to reference products. In terms of fire behaviour, SUS-CON panels were classified as EI 240 (4 times better than reference commercial panels, which are EI60). At last but not least it has been verified the high replicability of SUS-CON outcomes, using local materials (different sources with respect to the ones used in the lab) for the Turkish production at ISTON plant.