Natural Building Materials

This book sheds light on recent advances in sustainable construction and building materials with special emphasis on the characterization of natural and composite hydraulic mortars, advanced concrete technology, green building materials, and application of nanotechnology to the improvement of the design of building materials.

This book covers novel techniques and materials for removing inclusions in metallic melts, resulting in significant improvements to the purity, quality, and materials properties of the cast metal product. It looks at an entirely new generation of intelligent filter materials and filter systems with functionalized surfaces for removing solid and liquid inclusions such as deoxidation products, sulfides, and nitrides carbide from metallic melts. This collection of contributed chapters addresses the overarching goal of the production of lightweight structures and high-demand construction materials within an overall substantially cleaner and more sustainable global supply chain. The chapters cover a diverse array of topics ranging in scope from the development of ceramic foam filters, to in-situ x-ray and optical characterization techniques, as well as advanced modelling of 3D-printed filter structures. Additionally, the book features a number of contributions directly transferable to industrial applications related to the clean metal casting technologies of aluminium and steel alloys.

This book presents the state of the art on the weathering of polymers and plastic materials in outdoor applications, comprising natural weathering, accelerated climatic weathering, laboratory artificial accelerated weathering, and lifetime prediction methodology. It summarizes the most suitable methods of instrumental analysis to access and quantify (when possible) degradation caused by weathering, while also covering the degradation and stabilization of polymers based on environmental and artificially induced factors. Innovative polymer additives and some developments in polymeric materials designed for outdoor applications are also included, emphasizing a few selected cases. the book intends to be an important reference source for those involved in the study of the durability of polymers and plastics, production of plastics for exterior applications, chemists responsible for quality control of plastic products, and researchers and students across plastics engineering, polymer science, polymer chemistry and environmental science.

This book intends to provide a comprehensive overview on recent advances in the evaluation of cement-based materials materials.