Geology Meets Engineering: Advancing the Recycling of Construction Materials
Buildings as "Material Banks"
What lies in the focus is an approach from the UniGR-CIRKLA project that considers existing buildings as “material banks”—valuable reservoirs of mineral resources that can be systematically documented and made available for future reuse.
Challenge: Material Diversity and Consistency
Recycled materials derived from building demolition typically consist of heterogeneous mineral constituents that exhibit highly variable behavior when reused in concrete. This variability affects the quality, durability, and overall performance of the resulting concrete.
Research Objective
The project aims to improve the classification and quality assessment of recycled aggregates by systematically documenting and analyzing demolition materials and linking them to information on their geological origin and historical quarrying sites. This approach is intended to support the long-term use of recycled construction materials and promote a more resource-efficient circular economy in the construction sector.
In May, the UniGR-CIRKLA team at the University of Luxembourg presented its latest research at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly 2026, the world's largest conference in the field of geosciences.
The research project of the Department of Engineering, led by Prof. Dr. Markus Schäfer, was selected from more than 20,000 submitted abstracts to be featured at the official EGU press conference.
The full press conference is available on Youtube!