Professor Abir Al-Tabbaa and Dr Janet Lees from the Department of Engineering and Dr Yun Bai from Civil Engineering University College London (UCL) have been successful in the first ever EPSRC/NSFC call for collaborative UK/China research projects on Sustainable Materials for Infrastructure. Together with their collaborators, Professor Jueshi Qian (Chongqing University) and Professor Liwu Mo (Nanjing Tech University), they will lead global efforts to develop magnesia-bearing construction materials for future energy infrastructure.
The project named 'MagMats' (with a budget of £1M from EPSRC and NSFC) also includes collaborators from international academic centres: University of Toronto, Federal University of Minas Gerais and NTU (Singapore); a number of UK and Chinese industry partners.
The objective of the MagMats project is to integrate the unique and complementary expertise within the team to collectively address major material-related challenges facing future energy infrastructure. The focus will be on performance, durability and low carbon footprint. The development of a suite of magnesia-bearing construction materials compositions for the different anticipated challenges and scenarios will be a key deliverable.
Project MagMats will be launched in the Spring in Cambridge.