MagMats: Magnesia-bearing construction materials for future energy infrastructure

Material innovations focussing on delivery and sustainability are key as our global efforts intensify in the development of a secure and sustainable future energy landscape. Many infrastructure-related material challenges have emerged as a result of the need (i) to explore offshore marine environments for wind power generation, (ii) for deeper and more complex underground wellbore systems for new oil & gas explorations, (iii) for robust containment and shielding structures for new nuclear power plants and (iv) for larger dam structures for future hydropower generation. Our vision for this proposal is to build a world leading and long lasting partnership between academics in the UK and China, integrated with industrial partners and other world leading academic groups around the world, to collectively address some of those construction material challenges with a focus on sustainability. The commonality in the assembled group is our interest and expertise in exploring potentials for magnesia-bearing construction materials in solving some of those new challenges, by either providing completely new solutions or enhanced solutions to existing material systems. This is a unique area to China and the UK where there is significant complementary expertise in the different grades of and applications for magnesia. The project consortium from the University of Cambridge, University College London, Chongqing University and Nanjing Tech University has the required interdisciplinary mix of materials, structural and geotechnical engineers, with world leading unique expertise in magnesia-based construction materials. The intention is to share and advance our global understanding of the performance of those proposed materials, road map future research and commercial needs and identify the ideal applications in our future energy infrastructures where most performance impact and sustainability benefits can be achieved.

The proposed focusses two main areas of research. The first is the technical advantages and benefits that magnesia can provide to existing cement systems. This includes (i) its use as an expansive additive for large mass concrete constructions e.g. dams and nuclear installations, (ii) its role in magnesium phosphate cements for the developing of low pH cements suitable for nuclear waste applications and (iii) its role in advancing the development of alkali activated cements by providing low shrinkage and corrosion resistance. The second is the delivery of sustainable MgO production processes that focus on the use of both mineral and reject brine resources. An integral part of this project will be the knowledge transfer activities and collaboration with industry and other relevant research centres around the world. An overarching aspect of the proposed research is the mapping out of the team's capabilities and the integration of expertise and personnel exchange to ensure maximum impact. This will ensure that the research is at the forefront of the global pursuit for a sustainable future energy infrastructure and will ensure that maximum impact is achieved. The consortium plans to act as a global hub to provide a national and international platform for facilitating dialogue and collaboration to enhance the global knowledge economy.

The advancement of existing systems and development of a new suit of sustainable and futuristic magnesia-bearing construction materials through the proposed high level academic research collaboration between the academic team from the UK and China, as well as addressing global perspectives through wider academic and industrial collaborators, through potential for scale-up and commercial applications, is expected to have direct and significant economic and social impacts on the wide range of stakeholders involved in the development of sustainable construction materials and our global future energy infrastructure and much wider associated built environment. The proposed cementitious materials developments are expected to achieve significant technical enhancements to the performance of cementitious systems in the anticipated challenging environments associated with future energy infrastructures enabling much larger dam structures to be built, much deeper oil & gas wells to be installed and safer nuclear waste containment systems to be designed providing significant contributions to the increased energy production. It will also enable this to construction to take place with the use of sustainable materials by replacing Portland cement by magnesia bearing alkali activated cements, where appropriate, and the sustainable production of future MgO globally. The beneficiaries include:
(i) all those involved with construction materials, products and systems: material suppliers, consultants, contractors, clients, architects, planners, local authorities;
(ii) civil engineering consultants and contractors who: (a) are involved in energy infrastructure asset management and support for a wide range of infrastructure projects; (b) are involved in the design, construction, management and maintenance of different types of relevant future energy infrastructure structures; (c) put sustainability at the heart of their projects and see sustainable and resilient materials as a key component of sustainable development, and those who have to meet sustainability targets. Such innovations will also provide them with a leading edge over competitors and there is a clear potential for joint patents and inventions;
(iii) Waste organisations: Waste producers, through the reuse of global quantities of mineral wastes and wastewaters and conserving land and coastal resources, and Waste management companies, who will benefit from the development of the wast reuse technologies and applications that can be exported around the world;
(iv) government and policy makers who have the mission to deliver the next generation of energy systems (infrastructure and structures) and who will need to do that with sustainability and cost at the forefront of their thinking;
(v) UK and Chinese companies working abroad and in other BRIC countries as well as in parts of the world where particularly aggressive construction conditions exist e.g. construction in highly saline soils in the Middle East;
(vi) research and development organisations who will be able to work closely with the consortium and to take forward innovations to commercial scale applications;
(vii) those groups involved in design codes and standards by the provision of sufficient data and field evidence of performance to enable a move towards incorporation;
(viii) Professional engineering institutions by raising the profile of UK and China construction materials research with allied research fields and industrial sectors;
(ix) the wider public through the delivery of a reliable and safe energy systems with significantly reduced disruptions and costs to them through the provision of continuous supply or green energy through a green infrastructure with much reduced environmental impacts as well as school pupils will would benefit from public outreach activities through the project.