Biopolymers and Biotech Admixtures for Eco-Efficient Construction Materials

Since 1930 more than 100,000 new chemical compounds have been developed and insufficient information exists on the health assessment of 95 percent of these chemicals in which a relevant percentage are used in construction products. For instance Portland cement concrete, the most used material on the Planet (10.000 million tons/year that in the next 40 years will increase around 100 %) currently used in around 15% of total concrete production contains chemicals used to modify their properties, either in the fresh or hardened state. Biopolymers are materials that are developed from natural resources. They reduce dependence on fossil fuels and reduce carbon dioxide emissions. There is a worldwide demand to replace petroleum-based materials with renewable resources. Currently bio-admixtures represent just a small fraction of the chemical admixtures market (around 20%) but with environmental awareness for constituents in construction materials generally growing (the Construction Products Regulation is being enforced in Europe since 2013), the trend towards bio-admixtures is expected to continue. This book provides an updated state-of-the-art review on biopolymers and their influence and use as admixtures in the development of eco-efficient construction materials.

"The book provides basic concepts, production aspects and environmental impact assessment on the use of biopolymers and biotech admixtures ... It provides new knowledge, is well structured, really up-to-date, and has an enormous number of references." --Professor Lech Czarnecki, Building Research Institute, Poland (from the foreword)

Dr. F. Pacheco-Torgal is a principal investigator at the CTAC Research Unit, University of Minho, Portugal. He currently holds the title of Counsellor from the Portuguese Engineers Association and has authored more than 300 publications, 147 in Scopus and 125 in Web of Science. He is a member of the editorial board for 9 international journals, 5 referenced on Web of Science and two on Scopus. He has acted as a foreign expert in the evaluation of 18 PhD thesis. In the last 10 years he has been a Member of the Scientific Committee for almost 60 conferences most of them in Asian countries. He is also a grant assessor for several scientific institutions in 13 countries, UK, US, Netherlands, China, France, Australia, Kazakhstan, Belgium, Spain, Czech Republic, Saudi Arabia, UA. Emirates, and Poland. He has also been an invited reviewer for 125 international journals and has reviewed almost 1000 papers. He has been the lead editor of 22 books published by Woodhead Publishing, Elsevier, and Springer, 10 being on the Master Book List of Web of Science. Dr. Volodymyr Ivanov has more than 40 years of teaching and research experience on Environmental, Industrial, and Construction Microbiology and Biotechnology in the universities of Europe, Asia, and USA. He has authored 200 papers, patents, book chapters and 8 monographs. His textbook “Environmental Microbiology for Engineers”, Francis & Taylor, 1st (2010) and 2nd (2015) editions, has been adopted for graduate and post-graduate courses in many universities. His research experience includes the supervision and participation in numerous projects on biotechnologies with biofilms and biogranules, microbial transformations of iron, biocementation, bioclogging, bioremediation of soil, and microbiological monitoring of water quality. Niranjan Karak is Professor of Polymer Science and Technology and Head of the Chemical Sciences Department at Tezpur University, India. He has published over 87 research papers, two books and two chapters in two edited books, and also regularly acts as a reviewer for many international polymer journals. Henk Jonkers is a leading researcher and expert on self-healing bio-concrete and the sustainability Chair Leader of the Materials and Environment section in the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands.