21st century solutions for the construction sector
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CORDIScovery podcast- Episode #37 - 21st century solutions for the construction sector
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:10:05 - 00:00:16:09
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery.
00:00:16:11 - 00:00:48:13
Abigail Acton
Hello and welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery with me, Abigail Acton, Europe. Home to Historic buildings and winding medieval streets our architecture is frequently very picturesque, but much of our building stock predates current ambitious energy efficiency requirements. Just heating and cooling houses generates 36% of our total emissions. Buildings are the single largest source of energy consumption in the EU, responsible for around 40% of energy consumption and 36% of the energy related greenhouse gas emissions.
00:00:48:15 - 00:01:10:24
Abigail Acton
On the other hand, we need more houses. According to Eurostat, in 2022, over 16% of people living in the EU were in overcrowded houses. So how do we balance our need for more buildings while reducing the environmental impact of the construction sector? What's the latest in the world of passive cooling and heating? Can we make our buildings more resilient to natural disasters?
00:01:11:01 - 00:01:34:24
Abigail Acton
And can innovative approaches to 3D printing have far reaching impacts? Perhaps our three guests, all of whom received EU funding for scientific research, have some answers. With us today is Abdelghani Meslem, senior research engineer in Hazard and Risk Modeling at Norsar. He is also associate professor in structural dynamics at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).
00:01:35:01 - 00:01:41:12
Abigail Acton
His work is focused on earthquake disaster risk modeling, risk reduction and management. Hello, Abdelghani.
00:01:41:14 - 00:01:43:00
Abdelghani Meslem
Hello.
00:01:43:02 - 00:01:58:10
Abigail Acton
Paweł Sikora is associate professor at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering of West Pomeranian University of Technology in Poland. His main research areas of interest are additive manufacturing, lightweight concretes and nanotechnology. Hello Paweł.
00:01:58:12 - 00:02:00:00
Paweł Sikora
Hi. Hello, everybody.
00:02:00:02 - 00:02:18:07
Abigail Acton
Andriy Lyubchyk is assistant professor of Nanotechnologies and Nanomaterials at the Research Center in Industrial Engineering Management and Sustainability, which is part of Lisbon University. Andriy who co-founded the Deep Tech Lab, is focused on harnessing nanoengineering to generate renewable energy. Hi, Andriy.
00:02:18:12 - 00:02:22:02
Andriy Lyubchyk
Hello, Abigail. Thank you for the introduction. Thank you for having me here.
00:02:22:08 - 00:02:42:06
Abigail Acton
It's a great pleasure to have you. I'm going to turn to Abdelghani. From analyzing the ability of materials to withstand an earthquake, to disaster management after one, the TURNkey project looked at the resilience of our urban environments. So, Abdelghani when you first considered the resilience of the built environment in different countries, what was your key finding?
00:02:43:02 - 00:03:15:21
Abdelghani Meslem
Thank you for this question. Actually, our investigation has showed clearly that resilience can be influenced by three main factors. The first one is the construction technology and the practice in use. This includes, of course, building materials and regulation. The second factor was policies and legislations for the construction sector. In some countries, for instance, to get permit for constructing private houses does not require to go through a technical control agency.
00:03:16:02 - 00:03:54:05
Abdelghani Meslem
Municipality would take care of this, which is basically we reduce the resilience. And the other factor, which is mainly related to the cultural and social dimension. So for the first part, our first factor there has been a number of innovation, such as having new material with high performance structural connection, using new technology for conducting structures, some sources that control the overall behavior, and we can get out of it the level of ductility which express the level of which, given cannot go beyond a certain level of deformation without having serious damage.
00:03:54:06 - 00:04:08:18
Abigail Acton
Okay. And so when you talk about novel, novel approaches, new innovative approaches to making these buildings more resilient, can you be more precise? What sort of things? So, yes, increasing the ductility, the ability for a building to absorb stress. How is that done?
00:04:08:20 - 00:04:36:09
Abdelghani Meslem
Okay. So what we have done is we have first one part of the work. We have developed the new sensors. Those sensors can monitor the structural condition of a given building, and especially when we are talking about critical buildings such as hospitals, schools. So we can use this kind of information to detect any kind of changes in material characteristics, especially the stiffness.
00:04:36:09 - 00:04:52:06
Abdelghani Meslem
Stiffness is the DNA of a given building, and then we can, from there, predict what is expected behavior and then we can work. And identify the weaknesses and work on providing a solution to improve the resilience.
00:04:52:08 - 00:04:59:00
Abigail Acton
Okay, great. So when you're talking about a novel type of sensor, what makes these sensors new and where do you place them?
00:04:59:01 - 00:05:29:01
Abdelghani Meslem
So in the past, most of the sensors are conventional sensors, very heavy, expensive sensors that use very specific data and usually are only used for very, very much specific infrastructures or the network. Now we can use, for example, a smartphone based sensors that has capability to accept a different type of information that we managed to develop, a framework that can harmonize those data and then come up with an easy to read information.
00:05:29:03 - 00:05:47:22
Abigail Acton
So what kind of data then? So you were talking about rigidity and of course stiffness, which then of course makes a building less able to deal with stress. But so what are you looking at? Because presumably if there's too much flexibility that makes the building not particularly reliable either. So what's the sweet point here?
00:05:48:03 - 00:06:12:09
Abdelghani Meslem
So the data that we collect are frequency information, frequency content of a given building so that we identify the stiffness, but also the deformations because we have different types of sensors. So then from these deformations we can basically predict what will be the behavior, what will be the main weaknesses of a given building at any level
00:06:12:13 - 00:06:19:12
Abdelghani Meslem
we put them and this is the innovative phase, very cheap sensors that can be used even in private houses.
00:06:19:14 - 00:06:29:10
Abigail Acton
Excellent. That's wonderful. So that gives people a real insight into the structural integrity of a building before a quake, I imagine. Or is it also information coming shortly after?
00:06:29:16 - 00:06:53:09
Abdelghani Meslem
The aim is, as I said, the title of our project is “Towards more earthquake-resilient urban societies” means that before, as we can use this information, we can really predict what's going to happen and work to reduce vulnerability and has increased resilience. But of course it can be used after an earthquake to add to everyday localize the most affected area.
00:06:53:11 - 00:07:11:09
Abdelghani Meslem
So for example, we have sensors in a given region. We can simulate all buildings that are same typology would suffer the same thing then that is unimaginable knows where to focus the search, especially when we talk about critical infrastructures or critical building like school, hospitals.
00:07:11:11 - 00:07:13:11
Abigail Acton
Power stations, I imagine, and things like that.
00:07:13:14 - 00:07:14:10
Abdelghani Meslem
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:14:11 - 00:07:35:21
Abigail Acton
Okay, great. So it shows where the potential damage can be and then it enables authorities to take steps prior and more quickly after. Okay, that's fantastic. Thank you very much. So these ground motion models are real time. So who is actually using this information? It's I think, gathered together in a platform in the cloud. Is it ? How does that work?
00:07:35:23 - 00:08:06:21
Abdelghani Meslem
So the platform we developed can be used by two parties, the scientist, and the disaster management authorities, and this is the key factor of the project. We produced something that can be used not just for scientists. So, we generate those maps, we improve the way how they generate, how they can update a few seconds later so that already authorities know where the density is higher and they in reading know where are the most vulnerable zones.
00:08:06:21 - 00:08:21:01
Abdelghani Meslem
So then they know where to focus because this is the key point in disaster management. I have seen it many times that the authorities, they have no idea where to go, where to start from, but the tools show where to start from.
00:08:21:03 - 00:08:30:03
Abigail Acton
Excellent. This is fantastic work and I can imagine it's life lifesaving. What attracted you to this area of research in the first place?
00:08:31:14 - 00:09:05:04
Abdelghani Meslem
I come from Algeria, so in 2003 there was a huge earthquake which caused 23,000 deaths, plus more than 100,000 building collapse. At the time I was Masters student about to finish. And so I have seen with my eyes actually how these three factors that I just mentioned, that regulation, legislations, the lack of legislation/regulations and also the lack of understanding from the general public because earthquake doesn't kill, people kill themselves.
00:09:05:06 - 00:09:05:16
Abigail Acton
Right.
00:09:05:22 - 00:09:21:09
Abdelghani Meslem
If you follow the rules, it should work. It always worked in Japan. It should work somewhere else. So it's all about education, providing authorities with the tools that can help them, because this is also another issue that we have observed.
00:09:21:11 - 00:09:33:01
Abigail Acton
Right. I suppose when it comes to enforcing legislation which on the ground might seem unnecessarily cumbersome if you've got the data to prove how important it is to adhere to that, then people are more prepared.
00:09:33:03 - 00:09:48:20
Abdelghani Meslem
Yes, we use this information from the disaster, and then we tell them, these are the conditions under which a disaster happened. So if you include this point and this and this, it should increase the resilience and reduce the vulnerability.
00:09:48:20 - 00:10:04:05
Abigail Acton
Excellent. And unfortunately, if you're in a seismic zone, you can be pretty sure that it won't just be one earthquake, there might be another one coming. So you learn. That was fantastic. Thank you so much. How interesting. Does anyone have any questions or observations for Abdelghani? Yeah. Andriy what would you like to ask or say?
00:10:05:03 - 00:10:27:12
Andriy Lyubchyk
I'm very curious to know because I'm very far from what you are doing. So your detector is supposed to be very sensitive, right, therefore for the big cities, is there any interference of these signals by vibrations and anything related to the movement of the transportation and whatsoever. Are there any limitations?
00:10:27:14 - 00:10:49:11
Abdelghani Meslem
Obviously, yes, because when you put sensors, the first thing to work with is filtering. So you need to filter all unwanted noise. So definitely you have to do that. This was a problem with old sensors, which had less capabilities in frequency range. But now I think with all these new sensors, they are quite a very high resolution so that you can very easily remove all that unwanted noise.
00:10:49:11 - 00:10:50:01
Abdelghani Meslem
So yeah.
00:10:50:05 - 00:10:55:19
Abigail Acton
That's a very good point because the houses shake something quite dramatically when trams pass by.
00:10:55:21 - 00:11:12:05
Abdelghani Meslem
Yeah. And we are talking about frequency. Frequency means we really know what is a radio frequency of interest of a given building house. So any high frequency that you see, it has nothing to do with the building. So it's, it must be something else. So you already know your range of frequency of interest.
00:11:12:07 - 00:11:13:11
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Yes, Pawel.
00:11:14:04 - 00:11:20:07
Paweł Sikora
So I believe you can use some modeling to see which part of the building is the most stressed?
00:11:20:07 - 00:11:20:21
Abdelghani Meslem
Exactly.
00:11:20:22 - 00:11:23:20
Paweł Sikora
And then you can kind of put/ locate the sensors there, right?
00:11:23:22 - 00:11:43:24
Abdelghani Meslem
Yeah. This is the aim, actually. The where you put a sensor, the best is your model. Because sensors help you to calibrate your numerical model. And then from there, we can actually predict a reality, how the building is going to behave and then you can already know all the frequency levels, how we change the deformation shape.
00:11:44:01 - 00:11:53:02
Abdelghani Meslem
And then from there you can get the stiffness. Then you can know already the weaknesses of a given building, and then you can work on it to improve the resilience.
00:11:53:04 - 00:12:15:00
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Thank you so much. And actually, Pawel, I'm going to turn to you right now because talking about resilient buildings, I mean, the building materials themselves are obviously of interest here. So you're looking at something very intriguing. 3D printing is always interesting in its application in the “Ultra-LightCon-3D” project was particularly. So the project looked at ways of printing walls.
00:12:15:02 - 00:12:20:02
Abigail Acton
Now, I don't know, but to me that sounds absolutely fascinating. Tell us more. What exactly did you set out to do?
00:12:20:15 - 00:12:38:07
Paweł Sikora
Thank you for this question. Let's start from the history. If we think about construction industry, we try to solve modern problems with old technologies. So we use these old technologies of building, brick by brick, putting elements. And it didn't change over thousands of years.
00:12:39:05 - 00:13:04:12
Paweł Sikora
And if we think about the printing, we watch these science fiction movies, we would like to print our house, we would like the machines to do it for us. Right? We watched The Jetsons movie. And these houses looked very fancy and sophisticated. And that's what's actually 3-D printing is, it allows us to decrease the labor, in the simplest way to draw something in the computer, click it on the computer and then print it out.
00:13:04:14 - 00:13:20:05
Abigail Acton
It sounds fantastic, but obviously there's quite a few steps to actually get from the concept to the reality. So how do you actually go about printing a wall? Tell us, bring it to life for us. What does the inside of your workspace look like?
00:13:20:07 - 00:13:43:04
Paweł Sikora
In the simplest way, imagine how the 3D printing process looks like, we can actually think about the devices which we use nowadays, like a CNC cutting machine. So it's basically a gantry element, a thing that is moving. So if we have a thing which can move in the X, Y and Z axis, we can call it a 3D printer in the simplest way.
00:13:43:06 - 00:14:02:18
Paweł Sikora
And then if we have a hose and the pump, we can connect it with this gantry and write the script on the computer, make it move. And we put through the pump to the hose where we put the concrete. And basically that's how the printer works. And this it's either the simplest explanation.
00:14:02:20 - 00:14:19:12
Abigail Acton
Okay, then that's great. And that helps. But I'm just thinking myself icing a cake using just using a nozzle and I can make an enormous amount of mess just doing that. So I'm trying to work out when you've got liquid coming out of the hose. I mean, how do you how do you prevent it? It must be of a certain consistency, I suppose, to stop it just running everywhere.
00:14:19:12 - 00:14:23:23
Abigail Acton
What do you do? Is it like thick paste and it you just build up layer on layer on layer.
00:14:24:00 - 00:14:25:23
Paweł Sikora
That's actually where all the fun starts.
00:14:25:23 - 00:14:27:19
Abigail Acton
That I can imagine.
00:14:27:21 - 00:14:47:10
Paweł Sikora
If we think about concrete and the concrete was designed to be flowable, like conventional concrete should flow, but in 3D printing we have to kind of redesign the concept of concrete. So if we try to think about this, this is more like a stiff material which is extrudable. So it contains cement and the binder face. But, but this is much more sticky.
00:14:47:15 - 00:15:10:21
Paweł Sikora
So what we would like to have, what is the principles of design of this material? We would like to have a material which is flowable during the pumping process, but it should be stable after the deposition. And I don't want to go into, to too complicated technological aspects, but we call this the characteristics of this material of such material.
00:15:10:23 - 00:15:18:15
Paweł Sikora
We call it a thixotropic behavior. So we need a thixotropic material. This allows us to extrude the material and make it stable after the deposition.
00:15:18:18 - 00:15:29:20
Abigail Acton
That's fantastic. Thank you. We always love new words, on CORDIScovery so that's fine. Excellent. Okay, now tell me a little bit about what you discovered about using glass, because this, I think, is wonderful.
00:15:29:22 - 00:15:51:22
Paweł Sikora
So, yeah, you know, in in construction industry, we have or in general in our life, we have a lot of waste produced, right. And the glass is the most popular material we have everywhere. And as we know, we throw it away very often. We give it to recycling. But, you know, recycling is a great idea, but you never get this 100% recycling rate.
00:15:52:03 - 00:16:15:05
Paweł Sikora
And the same story happens with glass. The finer the particles of glass, the more difficult it is to recycle them because of the impurities, because we cannot guess the quality. And so on. So the final fraction, let's say below two millimeters, four millimeters, they're hardly recycled. So we have to find some solution. Generally they're just landfills, right?
00:16:15:07 - 00:16:38:10
Paweł Sikora
So we have to find solution. And this is when concrete comes, when the civil engineering comes, the concrete can in a simple way accept all of the waste. So we can we can solidify using the cement, all the waste into, let's say, so-called artificial stone. And we have a strong potential to recycle the glass, because if we think about glass, it's basically a combination of sand and the other components, right?
00:16:38:10 - 00:16:53:02
Paweł Sikora
So we are kind of recycling the material which is coming out from the sand. So that's what we found out, that this could be a great solution to deal with the problem of landfilling the fine particles of glass.
00:16:53:07 - 00:17:06:07
Abigail Acton
And what I think is particularly cool from a previous conversation we shared is that not only return in the glass to be used in the same way as sand is used to make the glass in the first place. So that's very elegant. But you've also found that it has thermal properties, haven't you?
00:17:06:10 - 00:17:29:04
Paweł Sikora
Yes, exactly. Due to the due to the production process, we are the atomic structure of the glass is a little bit different comparing to the to the one of the sand. I will not go into too many details, but this is the chemical aspects. But the outcome of this is the due to the production of the glass we get the material would substantially lower thermal conductivity.
00:17:29:04 - 00:17:45:10
Paweł Sikora
So comparing to the natural sand the recycled glass has a lower thermal conductivity. That's mean if we use it, we can produce let’s say insulating building materials or benefit from the long term conductivity by decreasing the thermal conductivity of the produced concrete.
00:17:45:12 - 00:18:00:19
Abigail Acton
That's. It's wonderful. It's so neat. Excellent. And where could these walls be used? Whether the walls or the technology behind the walls? Where do you see 3D printing for construction purposes taking us? If we were to go into really blue sky thinking.
00:18:00:21 - 00:18:21:18
Paweł Sikora
So basically everywhere, I mean we are facing the problem of the labor, we're facing the problem of the construction market of the very short construction times. 3D printing helps us to solve some of these problems. So basically the 3D printing can be used for the common housing for the basic houses.
00:18:21:18 - 00:18:39:12
Paweł Sikora
It can be used for the prefabrication. So production of the offsite production, that means you can have a hole where you produce some prefabricated elements which can be used later on, prefabricated balconies, for instance. So this can be done offsite. So these are the, let's say, most common application.
00:18:39:14 - 00:18:56:12
Abigail Acton
I did read a while back, we're talking about off site very definitely very off site - the notion of using 3D printing for constructing basic buildings or building materials on the moon, for example, using dust, sintering, dust.
00:18:56:14 - 00:19:14:00
Paweł Sikora
Definitely. So this is one of the fields where 3D printing has a sophisticated technology. So, thinking about using it in the lunar application, this is a great idea. I mean, we have a problem with the oxygen availability there and so on and so on.
00:19:14:00 - 00:19:25:00
Paweł Sikora
So we need devices. We need machines which can produce the shelters for us. If we would like to move there eventually, someday. So the 3D printing could be the great, great solution.
00:19:25:16 - 00:19:35:22
Abigail Acton
Has great potential for that sort of thing as well. Wonderful. That sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Does anyone have any comments for Pawel? Thank you very much, Pavel. It was beautifully explained. Anyone got any questions? Yes. Andriy what would you like to ask?
00:19:35:24 - 00:19:58:24
Andriy Lyubchyk
First of all, great project, very innovative idea. It's for nonprofessional. Could you just please explain, in terms of the production speed or building speed of this type of flow, how will it look like to fix it like a ten by ten meters wall, for example.
00:19:59:00 - 00:20:13:03
Paweł Sikora
All right. So I will just give you the example, the simple structure, like two by two by two. So like, like, like a small building, we can print it, let's say in 6 hours. 8 hours. So, this is the time frame.
00:20:13:03 - 00:20:14:20
Abigail Acton
Isn't that amazing?
00:20:14:22 - 00:20:15:21
Andriy Lyubchyk
That's incredible.
00:20:15:22 - 00:20:19:20
Abigail Acton
Yeah, That's very fun. Is it? Isn't that wonderful?
00:20:19:24 - 00:20:36:05
Andriy Lyubchyk
Also, could you please explain how these affect the energy efficiency of the buildings? You mentioned one very important parameter, which is the insulation. Well, what about thermal mass or some other tests which can also affect the energy efficiency?
00:20:36:06 - 00:20:54:12
Paweł Sikora
This is actually the core of my project. And thank you for asking that. So if you produce the standard concrete wall, like the monolithic wall, you have it filled by concrete. So if you if you use the formwork, which is a steel form, you have to put the concrete in site. So you will have a solid element.
00:20:54:14 - 00:21:20:02
Paweł Sikora
The great characteristic of 3D printing is that we can design our own printing path. So you can use topology design to print, let's say, hollow elements inside with some infill and we can fill it with the infill insulating material. And that was the part of my project to use the 3D printing, only to print the load bearing the structural element, very thin element.
00:21:20:04 - 00:21:43:13
Paweł Sikora
So inside we can put any insulating material we would like to have. The best would be something which is working well with concrete. So having the same characteristics, but you can put a lightweight concrete, you can put some lightweight aggregates inside, you can put a polyurethane foam so you can kind of control the insulating characteristics of the wall.
00:21:43:19 - 00:22:01:06
Abigail Acton
Okay, Super. Well, thank you very much. I'm going to turn to Andriy now. Andriy your project, the SShare project with two S's, came up with a very clever idea to heat and cool buildings using zero energy. And we all know just how impactful on the climate that is. So that would be wonderful if we can do it.
00:22:01:10 - 00:22:14:02
Abigail Acton
So we've been exploring the idea of insulation using recycled glass, but yours exploits something less tangible, the moisture in the air around us. So this is a fascinating proposition. How did you come to think of it?
00:22:14:02 - 00:22:40:24
Andriy Lyubchyk
Well, I was post-doc and we were working on another project, which was a precaution from airborne viruses and bacteria. And we supposed to develop material that would provide reactive species by interacting with atmospheric oxygen. And these species would kill the airborne viruses, bacteria. And so during the electrical measurements, we find out that the results were interfered by something.
00:22:41:02 - 00:23:03:22
Andriy Lyubchyk
And as we found later, it was a breeding of the experiment data. And so since that time, we started to explore the process and we found out that it was actually humidity, atmospheric humidity that interacted with the material can make electrical signal, which is the voltage in the current. So this is how everything started. And I was very, very skeptical in the beginning.
00:23:03:24 - 00:23:32:19
Andriy Lyubchyk
We had the first finding for the proof of concepts for this idea. Well, I'm on gas. I was not the most skeptical guy in the lab who were doing this, there was one in 40 years after the first project that he said, Listen, I find out that probably this, even with the low power generation, can be used for the construction materials, because construction materials requires a lot of materials there.
00:23:32:19 - 00:23:40:23
Andriy Lyubchyk
And this was the beginning to find a publication for these ideas of energy generation from atmospheric humidity.
00:23:41:24 - 00:24:03:05
Abigail Acton
So you had a researcher who noticed that their own act of breathing was causing a transitional change in the material that they were working with. And I think that's fascinating. So you are looking at, if we stick to the thermoregulation concept, you're looking at ways of heating and cooling buildings passively so can you tell us actually how this works.
00:24:03:14 - 00:24:28:17
Andriy Lyubchyk
Absolutely. So for this project, there's a combination of two technologies. It's a radiant heating cooling system. And the second one is the converter of atmospheric humidity into electrical energy. The first one is that in order to imagine it's simple, it's the silicate plate, silicate based plate inside which you have a tube. So by passing the water through these tubes, you can tell if the water is hot or cold.
00:24:28:17 - 00:24:48:24
Andriy Lyubchyk
You can cool down or warm up the surrounding atmosphere inside the building. So this system is usually attached to the ceiling or the walls of the building. And it's more efficient than the regular air conditioning systems because partially these tubes has holes. So the water can come out inside of silicate materials, which has a huge absorption capacity towards water.
00:24:49:01 - 00:25:09:12
Andriy Lyubchyk
So this ten kilogram silicate blade can it's sort of 20 kilogram of water and then it's imitate respiration of our body. So when it's hot outside it releases the water and cool down the atmosphere and vice versa. So the system can both work adsorption and dissolution to heat and cool down the building.
00:25:09:18 - 00:25:12:19
Abigail Acton
That's wonderful. Where does the water come from?
00:25:12:21 - 00:25:39:15
Andriy Lyubchyk
Any source of water. You have to dig in into the water. You use a pump and this is where we came with our technology. So this was exactly an idea to supply this system and make it self-sufficient. So we use the same humidity not only to heat and cool the building, but also to supply the pump to make the water flowing inside those tubes.
00:25:39:18 - 00:25:51:00
Abigail Acton
Okay. And is it a closed loop system so that you just supply some water and then it takes care of itself? I mean, you're losing some, too, to evaporation, obviously. So presumably you need to add water. How does that work?
00:25:51:00 - 00:25:56:23
Andriy Lyubchyk
So the pump is installed somewhere and it's taking the water from the source. So it's outside of the building.
00:25:56:23 - 00:26:04:18
Abigail Acton
And pumping it through these panels. And how big are these panels? Are we talking about the size of a wall or are we talking about so the size of the radiator?
00:26:04:20 - 00:26:31:12
Andriy Lyubchyk
So the system being installed to our partners, it was 144 square meters. testing facilities ceiling. By the end of the project we didn't manage to cover it entirely with our system, but we made one square meter panel combining both technologies. So our panel was installed under the top of their panel and it was hidden a bit under the glazing glare.
00:26:31:12 - 00:26:36:24
Andriy Lyubchyk
So very so and it looks like a regular room, but it was self-sufficient in terms of the air conditioning.
00:26:37:00 - 00:26:58:11
Abigail Acton
That's really interesting. And it sounds like an excellent solution. Obviously, much less environmental impact than things like air conditioning and so on. But you mentioned the notion of two panels here. So we've got the silicate panel with the tubes that have water going through and little holes that let the water out. And as you describe, then act like transpiration, perspiration.
00:26:58:13 - 00:27:02:03
Abigail Acton
But you're talking about a second panel. What's the second panel?
00:27:02:08 - 00:27:34:14
Andriy Lyubchyk
Well, the second hole is exactly our technology. We were developing on converting atmospheric humidity into electrical energy. So we use the humidity that is outgoing in the water out of the silicate panel and a third generation of the electrical energy to supply the water. So our panel is the least seen. It's only a few millimeters, not of the same surface area as the silicate panel in order to cover the full surface area.
00:27:34:16 - 00:27:44:24
Abigail Acton
So if I understand you correctly, you can by having the panel that collects the electricity, you can actually get enough electricity to power the pump.
00:27:45:01 - 00:28:08:01
Andriy Lyubchyk
Well, from just one panel, one square meter, no. So we need several because the efficiency of this process is quite low. The source energy is quite low. We are dealing with the diffusion and it's way less energetic than the solar energy or wind then. But nevertheless, since we have humidity everywhere continuously.
00:28:08:16 - 00:28:26:01
Abigail Acton
So that might not be very powerful, but it's totally continuous. So it's sort of always drip, drip, drip in a way, as it were. And so if you had panels that were really the size of a wall or something like that, and you had this very thin panel behind it collecting the electricity, then eventually you should have something that's self powering.
00:28:26:01 - 00:28:26:17
Abigail Acton
Yes?
00:28:26:19 - 00:29:10:16
Andriy Lyubchyk
Yes, exactly. So this is our target. Since the very, very beginning, our main target was improvement of the conversion efficiency. Currently is around 1% only. So it sounds very small. We already can think about the real scale application because we can provide enough energy to supply anything. So we have the project ongoing and within this project we are focused only on the technology that will the standalone solution that will provide the household with the amount of energy that it can cover its electrical energy needs.
00:29:10:16 - 00:29:18:03
Andriy Lyubchyk
So this would be a one cubic meter device that provide ten kilowatt hours of electrical energy per day.
00:29:18:06 - 00:29:20:16
Abigail Acton
And all in all, just from the idea of the humidity.
00:29:20:16 - 00:29:29:16
Andriy Lyubchyk
Yes, just of humidity. So the standalone solution is in line with the others like solar and the wind. So we are proposing a new source of renewable energy.
00:29:29:20 - 00:29:31:03
Abigail Acton
That's fascinating.
00:29:31:05 - 00:29:39:06
Andriy Lyubchyk
And yet there is a wide range of application. And personally I believe that the building and construction is the future for us as well.
00:29:39:08 - 00:29:50:00
Abigail Acton
Okay, that's brilliant. Yes, because you have the scale. That's super. Thank you very much. That's a fascinating concept. Does anyone have any observations or comments to make to Andriy?
00:29:50:02 - 00:30:03:19
Paweł Sikora
So I have a question. Can this technology replace air conditioning or it can facilitate or decrease the ability to consumption of energy by air conditioning? This is the first question. So maybe you can firstly reply to the first one.
00:30:03:21 - 00:30:28:15
Andriy Lyubchyk
Yeah, Yeah. So I think it's more complex than air conditioning because it needs to be integrated when you start building, when you start the building, your construction, because with air conditioning you can start at any moment, it requires less time, so it's more efficient. So it's probably good for the new buildings.
00:30:28:17 - 00:30:30:24
Abigail Acton
And could it replace the air conditioning? That was the question.
00:30:31:05 - 00:30:53:15
Andriy Lyubchyk
Yes, of course, Absolutely. So we do make some measurements on Mallorca where we perform the test, the guys perform the test, because this part is their technology our part is only on the atmospheric humidity converter. So they were able to maintain constant temperature during the entire year for this building with almost no consumption of the energy.
00:30:53:17 - 00:30:55:02
Abigail Acton
Fantastic. Excellent.
00:30:55:07 - 00:31:09:00
Paweł Sikora
I would like to ask also about some theoretical limitation of this system. I mean, maybe in some climate when it's too dry or it's too humid, it's not applicable. Do you have any limitations for this technology or it's only for intermediate zones or it can be used everywhere?
00:31:09:18 - 00:31:37:05
Andriy Lyubchyk
So this is a very good question. Well, in fact, it works from 20% of the relative humidity to 100%. The higher the humidity, the better, of course, the more current can get out of these conversion process. But it will fit for all European countries, because not many people know but the average humidity per year for a European country is almost 70%.
00:31:37:08 - 00:31:39:07
Andriy Lyubchyk
So which is good for us.
00:31:40:09 - 00:31:52:05
Abigail Acton
That was an excellent question. Yes, that's true, isn't it? If you're depending on something being you know, a certain degree of humidity, you wonder what would happen if it got too dry. All the panels just dry out, apparently not. They don't.
00:31:52:11 - 00:31:54:04
Andriy Lyubchyk
But we can see it's possible, you know.
00:31:54:18 - 00:31:55:18
Abigail Acton
yes, indeed.
00:31:57:21 - 00:32:15:20
Abigail Acton
All self-feeding pump. Excellent. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed that. Some really valuable insights into the developments of the innovations with the construction industry. I think it was Pawel who pointed out that, you know, the construction sector has really had a bit of a technology bypass for quite a few hundred years.
00:32:15:20 - 00:32:23:22
Abigail Acton
I think that was your phrase, wasn't it? I like it. I'm stealing it. So it's wonderful to see new concepts coming down the line. Thank you so much for your time.
00:32:24:03 - 00:32:27:06
Andriy Lyubchyk
Thank you. Would say bye bye. Thank you. Thank you very much.
00:32:29:01 - 00:32:50:03
Abigail Acton
You're very welcome. Goodbye, everyone. If you've enjoyed this podcast, follow us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or wherever else you are listening to your podcasts. Check out the home page on the CORDIS website and subscribe to make sure that the hottest research and EU funded science isn't passing you by. And if you are enjoying listening, why not spread the word?
00:32:50:05 - 00:33:18:17
Abigail Acton
We've talked about how gravity might impact our microbiome and we've looked at how artificial intelligence can help bees thrive. In our last 36 episodes, there'll be something that to tweak your curiosity. Perhaps you want to know what other EU funded projects are doing to make the construction sector greener and more efficient. On the CORDIS website, you'll find information on projects working in this area, including a collection of projects under the title “Old Meets Green New Technologies to Retrofit Buildings in Europe”.
00:33:18:19 - 00:33:39:15
Abigail Acton
The website has articles and interviews that explore the results of research being conducted on a very broad range of domains in subjects from echography to echolocation. There's something there for you, so come and check out the research that's revealing what makes our world tick. We're always happy to hear from you. Drop us a line editorial at Cordis dot Europa dot EU.
00:33:39:17 - 00:33:40:20
Abigail Acton
Until next time.
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:10:05 - 00:00:16:09
Abigail Acton
This is CORDIScovery.
00:00:16:11 - 00:00:48:13
Abigail Acton
Hello and welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery with me, Abigail Acton, Europe. Home to Historic buildings and winding medieval streets our architecture is frequently very picturesque, but much of our building stock predates current ambitious energy efficiency requirements. Just heating and cooling houses generates 36% of our total emissions. Buildings are the single largest source of energy consumption in the EU, responsible for around 40% of energy consumption and 36% of the energy related greenhouse gas emissions.
00:00:48:15 - 00:01:10:24
Abigail Acton
On the other hand, we need more houses. According to Eurostat, in 2022, over 16% of people living in the EU were in overcrowded houses. So how do we balance our need for more buildings while reducing the environmental impact of the construction sector? What's the latest in the world of passive cooling and heating? Can we make our buildings more resilient to natural disasters?
00:01:11:01 - 00:01:34:24
Abigail Acton
And can innovative approaches to 3D printing have far reaching impacts? Perhaps our three guests, all of whom received EU funding for scientific research, have some answers. With us today is Abdelghani Meslem, senior research engineer in Hazard and Risk Modeling at Norsar. He is also associate professor in structural dynamics at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).
00:01:35:01 - 00:01:41:12
Abigail Acton
His work is focused on earthquake disaster risk modeling, risk reduction and management. Hello, Abdelghani.
00:01:41:14 - 00:01:43:00
Abdelghani Meslem
Hello.
00:01:43:02 - 00:01:58:10
Abigail Acton
Paweł Sikora is associate professor at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering of West Pomeranian University of Technology in Poland. His main research areas of interest are additive manufacturing, lightweight concretes and nanotechnology. Hello Paweł.
00:01:58:12 - 00:02:00:00
Paweł Sikora
Hi. Hello, everybody.
00:02:00:02 - 00:02:18:07
Abigail Acton
Andriy Lyubchyk is assistant professor of Nanotechnologies and Nanomaterials at the Research Center in Industrial Engineering Management and Sustainability, which is part of Lisbon University. Andriy who co-founded the Deep Tech Lab, is focused on harnessing nanoengineering to generate renewable energy. Hi, Andriy.
00:02:18:12 - 00:02:22:02
Andriy Lyubchyk
Hello, Abigail. Thank you for the introduction. Thank you for having me here.
00:02:22:08 - 00:02:42:06
Abigail Acton
It's a great pleasure to have you. I'm going to turn to Abdelghani. From analyzing the ability of materials to withstand an earthquake, to disaster management after one, the TURNkey project looked at the resilience of our urban environments. So, Abdelghani when you first considered the resilience of the built environment in different countries, what was your key finding?
00:02:43:02 - 00:03:15:21
Abdelghani Meslem
Thank you for this question. Actually, our investigation has showed clearly that resilience can be influenced by three main factors. The first one is the construction technology and the practice in use. This includes, of course, building materials and regulation. The second factor was policies and legislations for the construction sector. In some countries, for instance, to get permit for constructing private houses does not require to go through a technical control agency.
00:03:16:02 - 00:03:54:05
Abdelghani Meslem
Municipality would take care of this, which is basically we reduce the resilience. And the other factor, which is mainly related to the cultural and social dimension. So for the first part, our first factor there has been a number of innovation, such as having new material with high performance structural connection, using new technology for conducting structures, some sources that control the overall behavior, and we can get out of it the level of ductility which express the level of which, given cannot go beyond a certain level of deformation without having serious damage.
00:03:54:06 - 00:04:08:18
Abigail Acton
Okay. And so when you talk about novel, novel approaches, new innovative approaches to making these buildings more resilient, can you be more precise? What sort of things? So, yes, increasing the ductility, the ability for a building to absorb stress. How is that done?
00:04:08:20 - 00:04:36:09
Abdelghani Meslem
Okay. So what we have done is we have first one part of the work. We have developed the new sensors. Those sensors can monitor the structural condition of a given building, and especially when we are talking about critical buildings such as hospitals, schools. So we can use this kind of information to detect any kind of changes in material characteristics, especially the stiffness.
00:04:36:09 - 00:04:52:06
Abdelghani Meslem
Stiffness is the DNA of a given building, and then we can, from there, predict what is expected behavior and then we can work. And identify the weaknesses and work on providing a solution to improve the resilience.
00:04:52:08 - 00:04:59:00
Abigail Acton
Okay, great. So when you're talking about a novel type of sensor, what makes these sensors new and where do you place them?
00:04:59:01 - 00:05:29:01
Abdelghani Meslem
So in the past, most of the sensors are conventional sensors, very heavy, expensive sensors that use very specific data and usually are only used for very, very much specific infrastructures or the network. Now we can use, for example, a smartphone based sensors that has capability to accept a different type of information that we managed to develop, a framework that can harmonize those data and then come up with an easy to read information.
00:05:29:03 - 00:05:47:22
Abigail Acton
So what kind of data then? So you were talking about rigidity and of course stiffness, which then of course makes a building less able to deal with stress. But so what are you looking at? Because presumably if there's too much flexibility that makes the building not particularly reliable either. So what's the sweet point here?
00:05:48:03 - 00:06:12:09
Abdelghani Meslem
So the data that we collect are frequency information, frequency content of a given building so that we identify the stiffness, but also the deformations because we have different types of sensors. So then from these deformations we can basically predict what will be the behavior, what will be the main weaknesses of a given building at any level
00:06:12:13 - 00:06:19:12
Abdelghani Meslem
we put them and this is the innovative phase, very cheap sensors that can be used even in private houses.
00:06:19:14 - 00:06:29:10
Abigail Acton
Excellent. That's wonderful. So that gives people a real insight into the structural integrity of a building before a quake, I imagine. Or is it also information coming shortly after?
00:06:29:16 - 00:06:53:09
Abdelghani Meslem
The aim is, as I said, the title of our project is “Towards more earthquake-resilient urban societies” means that before, as we can use this information, we can really predict what's going to happen and work to reduce vulnerability and has increased resilience. But of course it can be used after an earthquake to add to everyday localize the most affected area.
00:06:53:11 - 00:07:11:09
Abdelghani Meslem
So for example, we have sensors in a given region. We can simulate all buildings that are same typology would suffer the same thing then that is unimaginable knows where to focus the search, especially when we talk about critical infrastructures or critical building like school, hospitals.
00:07:11:11 - 00:07:13:11
Abigail Acton
Power stations, I imagine, and things like that.
00:07:13:14 - 00:07:14:10
Abdelghani Meslem
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:14:11 - 00:07:35:21
Abigail Acton
Okay, great. So it shows where the potential damage can be and then it enables authorities to take steps prior and more quickly after. Okay, that's fantastic. Thank you very much. So these ground motion models are real time. So who is actually using this information? It's I think, gathered together in a platform in the cloud. Is it ? How does that work?
00:07:35:23 - 00:08:06:21
Abdelghani Meslem
So the platform we developed can be used by two parties, the scientist, and the disaster management authorities, and this is the key factor of the project. We produced something that can be used not just for scientists. So, we generate those maps, we improve the way how they generate, how they can update a few seconds later so that already authorities know where the density is higher and they in reading know where are the most vulnerable zones.
00:08:06:21 - 00:08:21:01
Abdelghani Meslem
So then they know where to focus because this is the key point in disaster management. I have seen it many times that the authorities, they have no idea where to go, where to start from, but the tools show where to start from.
00:08:21:03 - 00:08:30:03
Abigail Acton
Excellent. This is fantastic work and I can imagine it's life lifesaving. What attracted you to this area of research in the first place?
00:08:31:14 - 00:09:05:04
Abdelghani Meslem
I come from Algeria, so in 2003 there was a huge earthquake which caused 23,000 deaths, plus more than 100,000 building collapse. At the time I was Masters student about to finish. And so I have seen with my eyes actually how these three factors that I just mentioned, that regulation, legislations, the lack of legislation/regulations and also the lack of understanding from the general public because earthquake doesn't kill, people kill themselves.
00:09:05:06 - 00:09:05:16
Abigail Acton
Right.
00:09:05:22 - 00:09:21:09
Abdelghani Meslem
If you follow the rules, it should work. It always worked in Japan. It should work somewhere else. So it's all about education, providing authorities with the tools that can help them, because this is also another issue that we have observed.
00:09:21:11 - 00:09:33:01
Abigail Acton
Right. I suppose when it comes to enforcing legislation which on the ground might seem unnecessarily cumbersome if you've got the data to prove how important it is to adhere to that, then people are more prepared.
00:09:33:03 - 00:09:48:20
Abdelghani Meslem
Yes, we use this information from the disaster, and then we tell them, these are the conditions under which a disaster happened. So if you include this point and this and this, it should increase the resilience and reduce the vulnerability.
00:09:48:20 - 00:10:04:05
Abigail Acton
Excellent. And unfortunately, if you're in a seismic zone, you can be pretty sure that it won't just be one earthquake, there might be another one coming. So you learn. That was fantastic. Thank you so much. How interesting. Does anyone have any questions or observations for Abdelghani? Yeah. Andriy what would you like to ask or say?
00:10:05:03 - 00:10:27:12
Andriy Lyubchyk
I'm very curious to know because I'm very far from what you are doing. So your detector is supposed to be very sensitive, right, therefore for the big cities, is there any interference of these signals by vibrations and anything related to the movement of the transportation and whatsoever. Are there any limitations?
00:10:27:14 - 00:10:49:11
Abdelghani Meslem
Obviously, yes, because when you put sensors, the first thing to work with is filtering. So you need to filter all unwanted noise. So definitely you have to do that. This was a problem with old sensors, which had less capabilities in frequency range. But now I think with all these new sensors, they are quite a very high resolution so that you can very easily remove all that unwanted noise.
00:10:49:11 - 00:10:50:01
Abdelghani Meslem
So yeah.
00:10:50:05 - 00:10:55:19
Abigail Acton
That's a very good point because the houses shake something quite dramatically when trams pass by.
00:10:55:21 - 00:11:12:05
Abdelghani Meslem
Yeah. And we are talking about frequency. Frequency means we really know what is a radio frequency of interest of a given building house. So any high frequency that you see, it has nothing to do with the building. So it's, it must be something else. So you already know your range of frequency of interest.
00:11:12:07 - 00:11:13:11
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Yes, Pawel.
00:11:14:04 - 00:11:20:07
Paweł Sikora
So I believe you can use some modeling to see which part of the building is the most stressed?
00:11:20:07 - 00:11:20:21
Abdelghani Meslem
Exactly.
00:11:20:22 - 00:11:23:20
Paweł Sikora
And then you can kind of put/ locate the sensors there, right?
00:11:23:22 - 00:11:43:24
Abdelghani Meslem
Yeah. This is the aim, actually. The where you put a sensor, the best is your model. Because sensors help you to calibrate your numerical model. And then from there, we can actually predict a reality, how the building is going to behave and then you can already know all the frequency levels, how we change the deformation shape.
00:11:44:01 - 00:11:53:02
Abdelghani Meslem
And then from there you can get the stiffness. Then you can know already the weaknesses of a given building, and then you can work on it to improve the resilience.
00:11:53:04 - 00:12:15:00
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Thank you so much. And actually, Pawel, I'm going to turn to you right now because talking about resilient buildings, I mean, the building materials themselves are obviously of interest here. So you're looking at something very intriguing. 3D printing is always interesting in its application in the “Ultra-LightCon-3D” project was particularly. So the project looked at ways of printing walls.
00:12:15:02 - 00:12:20:02
Abigail Acton
Now, I don't know, but to me that sounds absolutely fascinating. Tell us more. What exactly did you set out to do?
00:12:20:15 - 00:12:38:07
Paweł Sikora
Thank you for this question. Let's start from the history. If we think about construction industry, we try to solve modern problems with old technologies. So we use these old technologies of building, brick by brick, putting elements. And it didn't change over thousands of years.
00:12:39:05 - 00:13:04:12
Paweł Sikora
And if we think about the printing, we watch these science fiction movies, we would like to print our house, we would like the machines to do it for us. Right? We watched The Jetsons movie. And these houses looked very fancy and sophisticated. And that's what's actually 3-D printing is, it allows us to decrease the labor, in the simplest way to draw something in the computer, click it on the computer and then print it out.
00:13:04:14 - 00:13:20:05
Abigail Acton
It sounds fantastic, but obviously there's quite a few steps to actually get from the concept to the reality. So how do you actually go about printing a wall? Tell us, bring it to life for us. What does the inside of your workspace look like?
00:13:20:07 - 00:13:43:04
Paweł Sikora
In the simplest way, imagine how the 3D printing process looks like, we can actually think about the devices which we use nowadays, like a CNC cutting machine. So it's basically a gantry element, a thing that is moving. So if we have a thing which can move in the X, Y and Z axis, we can call it a 3D printer in the simplest way.
00:13:43:06 - 00:14:02:18
Paweł Sikora
And then if we have a hose and the pump, we can connect it with this gantry and write the script on the computer, make it move. And we put through the pump to the hose where we put the concrete. And basically that's how the printer works. And this it's either the simplest explanation.
00:14:02:20 - 00:14:19:12
Abigail Acton
Okay, then that's great. And that helps. But I'm just thinking myself icing a cake using just using a nozzle and I can make an enormous amount of mess just doing that. So I'm trying to work out when you've got liquid coming out of the hose. I mean, how do you how do you prevent it? It must be of a certain consistency, I suppose, to stop it just running everywhere.
00:14:19:12 - 00:14:23:23
Abigail Acton
What do you do? Is it like thick paste and it you just build up layer on layer on layer.
00:14:24:00 - 00:14:25:23
Paweł Sikora
That's actually where all the fun starts.
00:14:25:23 - 00:14:27:19
Abigail Acton
That I can imagine.
00:14:27:21 - 00:14:47:10
Paweł Sikora
If we think about concrete and the concrete was designed to be flowable, like conventional concrete should flow, but in 3D printing we have to kind of redesign the concept of concrete. So if we try to think about this, this is more like a stiff material which is extrudable. So it contains cement and the binder face. But, but this is much more sticky.
00:14:47:15 - 00:15:10:21
Paweł Sikora
So what we would like to have, what is the principles of design of this material? We would like to have a material which is flowable during the pumping process, but it should be stable after the deposition. And I don't want to go into, to too complicated technological aspects, but we call this the characteristics of this material of such material.
00:15:10:23 - 00:15:18:15
Paweł Sikora
We call it a thixotropic behavior. So we need a thixotropic material. This allows us to extrude the material and make it stable after the deposition.
00:15:18:18 - 00:15:29:20
Abigail Acton
That's fantastic. Thank you. We always love new words, on CORDIScovery so that's fine. Excellent. Okay, now tell me a little bit about what you discovered about using glass, because this, I think, is wonderful.
00:15:29:22 - 00:15:51:22
Paweł Sikora
So, yeah, you know, in in construction industry, we have or in general in our life, we have a lot of waste produced, right. And the glass is the most popular material we have everywhere. And as we know, we throw it away very often. We give it to recycling. But, you know, recycling is a great idea, but you never get this 100% recycling rate.
00:15:52:03 - 00:16:15:05
Paweł Sikora
And the same story happens with glass. The finer the particles of glass, the more difficult it is to recycle them because of the impurities, because we cannot guess the quality. And so on. So the final fraction, let's say below two millimeters, four millimeters, they're hardly recycled. So we have to find some solution. Generally they're just landfills, right?
00:16:15:07 - 00:16:38:10
Paweł Sikora
So we have to find solution. And this is when concrete comes, when the civil engineering comes, the concrete can in a simple way accept all of the waste. So we can we can solidify using the cement, all the waste into, let's say, so-called artificial stone. And we have a strong potential to recycle the glass, because if we think about glass, it's basically a combination of sand and the other components, right?
00:16:38:10 - 00:16:53:02
Paweł Sikora
So we are kind of recycling the material which is coming out from the sand. So that's what we found out, that this could be a great solution to deal with the problem of landfilling the fine particles of glass.
00:16:53:07 - 00:17:06:07
Abigail Acton
And what I think is particularly cool from a previous conversation we shared is that not only return in the glass to be used in the same way as sand is used to make the glass in the first place. So that's very elegant. But you've also found that it has thermal properties, haven't you?
00:17:06:10 - 00:17:29:04
Paweł Sikora
Yes, exactly. Due to the due to the production process, we are the atomic structure of the glass is a little bit different comparing to the to the one of the sand. I will not go into too many details, but this is the chemical aspects. But the outcome of this is the due to the production of the glass we get the material would substantially lower thermal conductivity.
00:17:29:04 - 00:17:45:10
Paweł Sikora
So comparing to the natural sand the recycled glass has a lower thermal conductivity. That's mean if we use it, we can produce let’s say insulating building materials or benefit from the long term conductivity by decreasing the thermal conductivity of the produced concrete.
00:17:45:12 - 00:18:00:19
Abigail Acton
That's. It's wonderful. It's so neat. Excellent. And where could these walls be used? Whether the walls or the technology behind the walls? Where do you see 3D printing for construction purposes taking us? If we were to go into really blue sky thinking.
00:18:00:21 - 00:18:21:18
Paweł Sikora
So basically everywhere, I mean we are facing the problem of the labor, we're facing the problem of the construction market of the very short construction times. 3D printing helps us to solve some of these problems. So basically the 3D printing can be used for the common housing for the basic houses.
00:18:21:18 - 00:18:39:12
Paweł Sikora
It can be used for the prefabrication. So production of the offsite production, that means you can have a hole where you produce some prefabricated elements which can be used later on, prefabricated balconies, for instance. So this can be done offsite. So these are the, let's say, most common application.
00:18:39:14 - 00:18:56:12
Abigail Acton
I did read a while back, we're talking about off site very definitely very off site - the notion of using 3D printing for constructing basic buildings or building materials on the moon, for example, using dust, sintering, dust.
00:18:56:14 - 00:19:14:00
Paweł Sikora
Definitely. So this is one of the fields where 3D printing has a sophisticated technology. So, thinking about using it in the lunar application, this is a great idea. I mean, we have a problem with the oxygen availability there and so on and so on.
00:19:14:00 - 00:19:25:00
Paweł Sikora
So we need devices. We need machines which can produce the shelters for us. If we would like to move there eventually, someday. So the 3D printing could be the great, great solution.
00:19:25:16 - 00:19:35:22
Abigail Acton
Has great potential for that sort of thing as well. Wonderful. That sounds fantastic, doesn't it? Does anyone have any comments for Pawel? Thank you very much, Pavel. It was beautifully explained. Anyone got any questions? Yes. Andriy what would you like to ask?
00:19:35:24 - 00:19:58:24
Andriy Lyubchyk
First of all, great project, very innovative idea. It's for nonprofessional. Could you just please explain, in terms of the production speed or building speed of this type of flow, how will it look like to fix it like a ten by ten meters wall, for example.
00:19:59:00 - 00:20:13:03
Paweł Sikora
All right. So I will just give you the example, the simple structure, like two by two by two. So like, like, like a small building, we can print it, let's say in 6 hours. 8 hours. So, this is the time frame.
00:20:13:03 - 00:20:14:20
Abigail Acton
Isn't that amazing?
00:20:14:22 - 00:20:15:21
Andriy Lyubchyk
That's incredible.
00:20:15:22 - 00:20:19:20
Abigail Acton
Yeah, That's very fun. Is it? Isn't that wonderful?
00:20:19:24 - 00:20:36:05
Andriy Lyubchyk
Also, could you please explain how these affect the energy efficiency of the buildings? You mentioned one very important parameter, which is the insulation. Well, what about thermal mass or some other tests which can also affect the energy efficiency?
00:20:36:06 - 00:20:54:12
Paweł Sikora
This is actually the core of my project. And thank you for asking that. So if you produce the standard concrete wall, like the monolithic wall, you have it filled by concrete. So if you if you use the formwork, which is a steel form, you have to put the concrete in site. So you will have a solid element.
00:20:54:14 - 00:21:20:02
Paweł Sikora
The great characteristic of 3D printing is that we can design our own printing path. So you can use topology design to print, let's say, hollow elements inside with some infill and we can fill it with the infill insulating material. And that was the part of my project to use the 3D printing, only to print the load bearing the structural element, very thin element.
00:21:20:04 - 00:21:43:13
Paweł Sikora
So inside we can put any insulating material we would like to have. The best would be something which is working well with concrete. So having the same characteristics, but you can put a lightweight concrete, you can put some lightweight aggregates inside, you can put a polyurethane foam so you can kind of control the insulating characteristics of the wall.
00:21:43:19 - 00:22:01:06
Abigail Acton
Okay, Super. Well, thank you very much. I'm going to turn to Andriy now. Andriy your project, the SShare project with two S's, came up with a very clever idea to heat and cool buildings using zero energy. And we all know just how impactful on the climate that is. So that would be wonderful if we can do it.
00:22:01:10 - 00:22:14:02
Abigail Acton
So we've been exploring the idea of insulation using recycled glass, but yours exploits something less tangible, the moisture in the air around us. So this is a fascinating proposition. How did you come to think of it?
00:22:14:02 - 00:22:40:24
Andriy Lyubchyk
Well, I was post-doc and we were working on another project, which was a precaution from airborne viruses and bacteria. And we supposed to develop material that would provide reactive species by interacting with atmospheric oxygen. And these species would kill the airborne viruses, bacteria. And so during the electrical measurements, we find out that the results were interfered by something.
00:22:41:02 - 00:23:03:22
Andriy Lyubchyk
And as we found later, it was a breeding of the experiment data. And so since that time, we started to explore the process and we found out that it was actually humidity, atmospheric humidity that interacted with the material can make electrical signal, which is the voltage in the current. So this is how everything started. And I was very, very skeptical in the beginning.
00:23:03:24 - 00:23:32:19
Andriy Lyubchyk
We had the first finding for the proof of concepts for this idea. Well, I'm on gas. I was not the most skeptical guy in the lab who were doing this, there was one in 40 years after the first project that he said, Listen, I find out that probably this, even with the low power generation, can be used for the construction materials, because construction materials requires a lot of materials there.
00:23:32:19 - 00:23:40:23
Andriy Lyubchyk
And this was the beginning to find a publication for these ideas of energy generation from atmospheric humidity.
00:23:41:24 - 00:24:03:05
Abigail Acton
So you had a researcher who noticed that their own act of breathing was causing a transitional change in the material that they were working with. And I think that's fascinating. So you are looking at, if we stick to the thermoregulation concept, you're looking at ways of heating and cooling buildings passively so can you tell us actually how this works.
00:24:03:14 - 00:24:28:17
Andriy Lyubchyk
Absolutely. So for this project, there's a combination of two technologies. It's a radiant heating cooling system. And the second one is the converter of atmospheric humidity into electrical energy. The first one is that in order to imagine it's simple, it's the silicate plate, silicate based plate inside which you have a tube. So by passing the water through these tubes, you can tell if the water is hot or cold.
00:24:28:17 - 00:24:48:24
Andriy Lyubchyk
You can cool down or warm up the surrounding atmosphere inside the building. So this system is usually attached to the ceiling or the walls of the building. And it's more efficient than the regular air conditioning systems because partially these tubes has holes. So the water can come out inside of silicate materials, which has a huge absorption capacity towards water.
00:24:49:01 - 00:25:09:12
Andriy Lyubchyk
So this ten kilogram silicate blade can it's sort of 20 kilogram of water and then it's imitate respiration of our body. So when it's hot outside it releases the water and cool down the atmosphere and vice versa. So the system can both work adsorption and dissolution to heat and cool down the building.
00:25:09:18 - 00:25:12:19
Abigail Acton
That's wonderful. Where does the water come from?
00:25:12:21 - 00:25:39:15
Andriy Lyubchyk
Any source of water. You have to dig in into the water. You use a pump and this is where we came with our technology. So this was exactly an idea to supply this system and make it self-sufficient. So we use the same humidity not only to heat and cool the building, but also to supply the pump to make the water flowing inside those tubes.
00:25:39:18 - 00:25:51:00
Abigail Acton
Okay. And is it a closed loop system so that you just supply some water and then it takes care of itself? I mean, you're losing some, too, to evaporation, obviously. So presumably you need to add water. How does that work?
00:25:51:00 - 00:25:56:23
Andriy Lyubchyk
So the pump is installed somewhere and it's taking the water from the source. So it's outside of the building.
00:25:56:23 - 00:26:04:18
Abigail Acton
And pumping it through these panels. And how big are these panels? Are we talking about the size of a wall or are we talking about so the size of the radiator?
00:26:04:20 - 00:26:31:12
Andriy Lyubchyk
So the system being installed to our partners, it was 144 square meters. testing facilities ceiling. By the end of the project we didn't manage to cover it entirely with our system, but we made one square meter panel combining both technologies. So our panel was installed under the top of their panel and it was hidden a bit under the glazing glare.
00:26:31:12 - 00:26:36:24
Andriy Lyubchyk
So very so and it looks like a regular room, but it was self-sufficient in terms of the air conditioning.
00:26:37:00 - 00:26:58:11
Abigail Acton
That's really interesting. And it sounds like an excellent solution. Obviously, much less environmental impact than things like air conditioning and so on. But you mentioned the notion of two panels here. So we've got the silicate panel with the tubes that have water going through and little holes that let the water out. And as you describe, then act like transpiration, perspiration.
00:26:58:13 - 00:27:02:03
Abigail Acton
But you're talking about a second panel. What's the second panel?
00:27:02:08 - 00:27:34:14
Andriy Lyubchyk
Well, the second hole is exactly our technology. We were developing on converting atmospheric humidity into electrical energy. So we use the humidity that is outgoing in the water out of the silicate panel and a third generation of the electrical energy to supply the water. So our panel is the least seen. It's only a few millimeters, not of the same surface area as the silicate panel in order to cover the full surface area.
00:27:34:16 - 00:27:44:24
Abigail Acton
So if I understand you correctly, you can by having the panel that collects the electricity, you can actually get enough electricity to power the pump.
00:27:45:01 - 00:28:08:01
Andriy Lyubchyk
Well, from just one panel, one square meter, no. So we need several because the efficiency of this process is quite low. The source energy is quite low. We are dealing with the diffusion and it's way less energetic than the solar energy or wind then. But nevertheless, since we have humidity everywhere continuously.
00:28:08:16 - 00:28:26:01
Abigail Acton
So that might not be very powerful, but it's totally continuous. So it's sort of always drip, drip, drip in a way, as it were. And so if you had panels that were really the size of a wall or something like that, and you had this very thin panel behind it collecting the electricity, then eventually you should have something that's self powering.
00:28:26:01 - 00:28:26:17
Abigail Acton
Yes?
00:28:26:19 - 00:29:10:16
Andriy Lyubchyk
Yes, exactly. So this is our target. Since the very, very beginning, our main target was improvement of the conversion efficiency. Currently is around 1% only. So it sounds very small. We already can think about the real scale application because we can provide enough energy to supply anything. So we have the project ongoing and within this project we are focused only on the technology that will the standalone solution that will provide the household with the amount of energy that it can cover its electrical energy needs.
00:29:10:16 - 00:29:18:03
Andriy Lyubchyk
So this would be a one cubic meter device that provide ten kilowatt hours of electrical energy per day.
00:29:18:06 - 00:29:20:16
Abigail Acton
And all in all, just from the idea of the humidity.
00:29:20:16 - 00:29:29:16
Andriy Lyubchyk
Yes, just of humidity. So the standalone solution is in line with the others like solar and the wind. So we are proposing a new source of renewable energy.
00:29:29:20 - 00:29:31:03
Abigail Acton
That's fascinating.
00:29:31:05 - 00:29:39:06
Andriy Lyubchyk
And yet there is a wide range of application. And personally I believe that the building and construction is the future for us as well.
00:29:39:08 - 00:29:50:00
Abigail Acton
Okay, that's brilliant. Yes, because you have the scale. That's super. Thank you very much. That's a fascinating concept. Does anyone have any observations or comments to make to Andriy?
00:29:50:02 - 00:30:03:19
Paweł Sikora
So I have a question. Can this technology replace air conditioning or it can facilitate or decrease the ability to consumption of energy by air conditioning? This is the first question. So maybe you can firstly reply to the first one.
00:30:03:21 - 00:30:28:15
Andriy Lyubchyk
Yeah, Yeah. So I think it's more complex than air conditioning because it needs to be integrated when you start building, when you start the building, your construction, because with air conditioning you can start at any moment, it requires less time, so it's more efficient. So it's probably good for the new buildings.
00:30:28:17 - 00:30:30:24
Abigail Acton
And could it replace the air conditioning? That was the question.
00:30:31:05 - 00:30:53:15
Andriy Lyubchyk
Yes, of course, Absolutely. So we do make some measurements on Mallorca where we perform the test, the guys perform the test, because this part is their technology our part is only on the atmospheric humidity converter. So they were able to maintain constant temperature during the entire year for this building with almost no consumption of the energy.
00:30:53:17 - 00:30:55:02
Abigail Acton
Fantastic. Excellent.
00:30:55:07 - 00:31:09:00
Paweł Sikora
I would like to ask also about some theoretical limitation of this system. I mean, maybe in some climate when it's too dry or it's too humid, it's not applicable. Do you have any limitations for this technology or it's only for intermediate zones or it can be used everywhere?
00:31:09:18 - 00:31:37:05
Andriy Lyubchyk
So this is a very good question. Well, in fact, it works from 20% of the relative humidity to 100%. The higher the humidity, the better, of course, the more current can get out of these conversion process. But it will fit for all European countries, because not many people know but the average humidity per year for a European country is almost 70%.
00:31:37:08 - 00:31:39:07
Andriy Lyubchyk
So which is good for us.
00:31:40:09 - 00:31:52:05
Abigail Acton
That was an excellent question. Yes, that's true, isn't it? If you're depending on something being you know, a certain degree of humidity, you wonder what would happen if it got too dry. All the panels just dry out, apparently not. They don't.
00:31:52:11 - 00:31:54:04
Andriy Lyubchyk
But we can see it's possible, you know.
00:31:54:18 - 00:31:55:18
Abigail Acton
yes, indeed.
00:31:57:21 - 00:32:15:20
Abigail Acton
All self-feeding pump. Excellent. Thank you so much. I really enjoyed that. Some really valuable insights into the developments of the innovations with the construction industry. I think it was Pawel who pointed out that, you know, the construction sector has really had a bit of a technology bypass for quite a few hundred years.
00:32:15:20 - 00:32:23:22
Abigail Acton
I think that was your phrase, wasn't it? I like it. I'm stealing it. So it's wonderful to see new concepts coming down the line. Thank you so much for your time.
00:32:24:03 - 00:32:27:06
Andriy Lyubchyk
Thank you. Would say bye bye. Thank you. Thank you very much.
00:32:29:01 - 00:32:50:03
Abigail Acton
You're very welcome. Goodbye, everyone. If you've enjoyed this podcast, follow us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or wherever else you are listening to your podcasts. Check out the home page on the CORDIS website and subscribe to make sure that the hottest research and EU funded science isn't passing you by. And if you are enjoying listening, why not spread the word?
00:32:50:05 - 00:33:18:17
Abigail Acton
We've talked about how gravity might impact our microbiome and we've looked at how artificial intelligence can help bees thrive. In our last 36 episodes, there'll be something that to tweak your curiosity. Perhaps you want to know what other EU funded projects are doing to make the construction sector greener and more efficient. On the CORDIS website, you'll find information on projects working in this area, including a collection of projects under the title “Old Meets Green New Technologies to Retrofit Buildings in Europe”.
00:33:18:19 - 00:33:39:15
Abigail Acton
The website has articles and interviews that explore the results of research being conducted on a very broad range of domains in subjects from echography to echolocation. There's something there for you, so come and check out the research that's revealing what makes our world tick. We're always happy to hear from you. Drop us a line editorial at Cordis dot Europa dot EU.
00:33:39:17 - 00:33:40:20
Abigail Acton
Until next time.
Insights and ideas
Here’s a conundrum: Just heating and cooling existing houses generates 36 %(opens in new window) of our total emissions. Building results in a vast carbon footprint, according to the European Environmental Bureau(opens in new window). Products such as cement, steel and insulation are responsible for 250 million tonnes of CO2 emissions in the EU annually – equivalent to flying around the world 38 million times. On the other hand, more and more people are living in cramped spaces, or have no home at all. Eurostat(opens in new window) reveals that 16.8 % of people living in the EU were in overcrowded households in 2023, and many of us know of adults who have moved back in with their parents as prices in the rental sector skyrocket due to demand. So, how can we balance our need for more buildings while reducing the environmental impact of the construction sector? Perhaps our three guests, all of whom have received support from the EU, have some answers. With us today are: Abdelghani Meslem(opens in new window) is senior research engineer in Hazard and Risk Modelling at NORSAR(opens in new window). He is also associate professor in Structural Dynamics at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences(opens in new window) (NMBU). His work is focused on earthquake risk modelling, risk reduction and management, which he explored through the TURNkey project. Paweł Sikora(opens in new window) is an associate professor from the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the West Pomeranian University of Technology(opens in new window) in Szczecin, Poland. The Ultra-LightCon-3D project helped fund his research into additive manufacturing, lightweight concretes and nanotechnology. Andriy Lyubchyk(opens in new window) is assistant professor of Nanotechnologies and Nanomaterials at the Research Center in Industrial Engineering, Management and Sustainability(opens in new window), part of Lisbon University(opens in new window). Andriy was the coordinator of the SSHARE project which focused on harnessing nanoengineering to advance the generation of renewable energy.
Happy to hear from you!
If you have any feedback, we’re always happy to hear from you! Send us any comments, questions or suggestions to: editorial@cordis.europa.eu