hubler

Hubler earns NSF CAREER award to advance living building materials

Anonymous — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 15:03:56 +0000

Hubler earns NSF CAREER award to advance living building materials Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 03/22/2022 - 09:03

Jonathan Raab

Assistant Professor Mija Hubler

Assistant Professor Mija Hubler is a recipient of a three year, $548,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award for her proposal “Mechanical Modeling of Living Building Materials for Structural Applications.”

Major advances are being made in the study of living building materials that can be grown in the laboratory and could replace concrete, a significant driver of CO2 emissions in the construction industry

“This research is about creating a mechanical model for living building material,” Hubler said. “The model will enable the design of structures and the engineering of living building material to achieve the desired performance needed for structural applications.”

NSF CAREER awards support early career faculty who are dedicated to research and education. Hubler is using this project to integrate her education and research goals through the study of mechanics in civil infrastructure materials, as well as to improve the recruitment and retention of female and non-traditional students in research and innovation career tracks.

“These activities can help meet a growing workforce demand and support cross-disciplinary innovation for infrastructure materials,” Hubler said. “I hope to grow interest in research careers from a broad audience in this area in part by working with Colorado Mesa University to engage students there in working with living building materials.”

Hubler said that using living building materials for structural applications will help replace concrete as the main building material used in construction today.

“Living building material does not require cement, which is the binding ingredient of concrete that drives its large carbon footprint,” Hubler said. “It is much more crack resistant than concrete and enables material recycling.”

Alternatives to concrete are of interest to civil engineers and the construction industry to address both building durability concerns and CO2 impact. Although past new construction materials have been rejected due to lacking the mechanical properties and behavior of traditional materials, Hubler said living building materials show major promise.

“I have been inspired to better understand what features of the material control the mechanics to engineer new materials to better meet expectations, and also to develop mechanical models of new construction materials to enable them to be adopted into design practices,” Hubler said.

Hubler believes that the model her group will develop will also be applicable to other novel materials, including reinforced metal foams and stabilized soils. She anticipates developing a practical model for living building materials within the next two years, with a five-year goal of using the model to design a full-scale beam composed of living material.

Hubler is a faculty member at the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering and the Materials Science and Engineering Program and serves as the Co-Director of the Center for Infrastructure, Energy and Space Testing. Six faculty members within the College of Engineering and Applied Science received CAREER Awards from the National Science Foundation in 2022.

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Seed grant opens research into future of construction materials, site tools

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Feb 2022 20:31:06 +0000

Seed grant opens research into future of construction materials, site tools Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 02/11/2022 - 13:31

Researchers at CU Boulder are developing an app that could reliably and quickly predict whether batches of concrete made at construction sites are safe. If successful, the work could usher in a new era of building that is faster, more cost effective and safer overall for everyone.

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Carbon capture DOE-funded projects may lead to more durable concrete materials

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:38:36 +0000

Carbon capture DOE-funded projects may lead to more durable concrete materials Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 08/25/2021 - 13:38

Jonathan Raab

Assistant Professor Mija Hubler

Melvin E. and Virginia M. Clark Professor Al Weimer

Assistant Professor Mija Hubler and Melvin E. and Virginia M. Clark Professor Al Weimer are collaborating on linked Department of Energy-funded projects to capture and repurpose carbon products from fuel sources into materials for concrete bricks. They hope to reduce pollution while also making stronger, more resilient building materials that require less maintenance and repairs over time.

The collaboration began in 2019, when the researchers received a Research and Innovation Office seed grant for their “Extremely Durable Concrete using Methane Decarbonization Nanofiber Byproducts” project. Based on the results of their initial study, they applied for two separate but related Department of Energy grants the following year.

“Our initial collaboration was motivated by the need to produce a byproduct to financially enable hydrogen for the transportation industry,” Hubler said. “We had previously shown there were benefits of adding solid carbon to concrete. We saw the potential to benefit concrete for infrastructure applications at the same time.”

The DOE approved “Extremely Durable Concrete using Methane Decarbonization Nanofiber Co-products with Hydrogen” through the Office of Energy and Renewable Energy and “Modular Processing of Flare Gas for Carbon Nanoproducts” through the National Energy Technology Laboratory in 2020. The projects’ combined funding totals $4 million.

“Depending on the optimal percent of carbon nano-product being sequestered with addition to cement and concrete, it is possible to replace as much as 25% of the hydrogen used in the U.S. that is made by greenhouse gas-generating steam methane reforming,” Weimer said. “This will have a dramatic impact on reducing CO2 emissions.”

The “Extremely Durable Concrete” project seeks to displace hydrogen production by steam methane reforming with a low-cost and scalable chemical vapor deposition process that produces value-added carbon nano-products. The “Modular Processing of Flare Gas for Carbon Nanoproducts” project will create a modular process to react methane to a value-added carbon nano-product that holds the potential to convert vented or flared natural gas into a commercially viable product.

In both cases, these carbon products can be incorporated into concrete.

“The value-added carbon nano-product ‘sequesters’ carbon from methane as a solid,” Hubler said. “The addition of the carbon nanofiber product to concrete increases the service life of concrete structures. This reduces the need for repair and reconstruction of concrete infrastructure.”

This materials science project is a joint effort between Team Weimer, housed in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and the Hubler Research Group of the Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering.

“The collaboration means we learn a lot about material science research across these fields,” Hubler said. “We have a joint research team of students and postdocs across both projects and departments. Additionally, consultation from our industry partners Forge Nano and National Ready Mix Concrete Association ensures the applicability of our efforts.”

Weimer has been a member of the MSE Program since its founding. Hubler is joining the program this fall.

“Since my research projects entail studies of materials innovation for structural applications, I hope my joining the MSE Program will enable the subset of my students who pursue materials development to take classes directly related to their research and be part of a student cohort of other materials researchers,” Hubler said.

She pointed toward the benefits of materials research for both the natural and built environments.

“Beyond the basic drive for improved cost and performance, structural materials such as concrete are facing a crisis due to their carbon footprint,” she said. “They are the most produced materials in the world and their manufacture has a direct impact on the future climate. As a result, there is a need and urgency to reinvent the structural materials we build with today. The field of new structural materials is exciting and beyond traditional concepts incorporating smart, living, healing and computationally designed materials.”

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