MagMats: Magnesia-bearing construction materials for future energy infrastructure

随着我们加强全球努力，发展安全和可持续的未来能源格局，注重交付和可持续发展的材料创新是关键。由于需要(I)为风力发电探索近海海洋环境，(Ii)为新的石油和天然气勘探开发更深和更复杂的地下井筒系统，(Iii)为新的核电站提供坚固的安全壳和屏蔽结构，以及(Iv)为未来的水力发电需要更大的大坝结构，出现了许多与基础设施有关的材料挑战。我们对这项提议的愿景是在英国学者和中国之间建立世界领先的长期伙伴关系，与世界各地的工业合作伙伴和其他世界领先的学术团体整合，共同应对一些建筑材料挑战，重点是可持续性。组装团队的共同点是我们对探索含镁建筑材料的潜力感兴趣，并拥有专业知识，通过为现有材料系统提供全新的解决方案或增强解决方案来解决其中一些新挑战。对于中国和英国来说，这是一个独特的领域，在不同等级的氧化镁和氧化镁的应用方面，两国有着重要的互补专业知识。该项目由剑桥大学、伦敦大学学院、重庆大学和南京理工大学组成，拥有所需的跨学科材料、结构和岩土工程师组合，在氧化镁建筑材料方面拥有世界领先的独特专业知识。其目的是分享和促进我们对这些拟议材料的性能的全球理解，路线图未来的研究和商业需求，并确定在我们未来的能源基础设施中可以实现最大性能影响和可持续效益的理想应用。首先是氧化镁可以为现有水泥系统提供的技术优势和好处。这包括(I)它用作大坝和核设施等大体积混凝土建筑的膨胀剂，(Ii)它在磷酸镁水泥中的作用，以开发适合于核废料应用的低pH值水泥，以及(Iii)它通过提供低收缩和耐腐蚀性，在促进碱激发水泥的发展中的作用。第二是提供可持续的氧化镁生产工艺，重点是利用矿物资源和废弃卤水资源。该项目的一个组成部分将是知识转让活动以及与世界各地的工业界和其他相关研究中心的合作。拟议研究的一个重要方面是规划团队的能力，并整合专门知识和人员交流，以确保产生最大的影响。这将确保这项研究处于全球追求可持续未来能源基础设施的前沿，并将确保实现最大影响。该联盟计划作为一个全球枢纽，提供一个国家和国际平台，促进对话和合作，以促进全球知识经济。

Material innovations focussing on delivery and sustainability are key as our global efforts intensify in the development of a secure and sustainable future energy landscape. Many infrastructure-related material challenges have emerged as a result of the need (i) to explore offshore marine environments for wind power generation, (ii) for deeper and more complex underground wellbore systems for new oil & gas explorations, (iii) for robust containment and shielding structures for new nuclear power plants and (iv) for larger dam structures for future hydropower generation. Our vision for this proposal is to build a world leading and long lasting partnership between academics in the UK and China, integrated with industrial partners and other world leading academic groups around the world, to collectively address some of those construction material challenges with a focus on sustainability. The commonality in the assembled group is our interest and expertise in exploring potentials for magnesia-bearing construction materials in solving some of those new challenges, by either providing completely new solutions or enhanced solutions to existing material systems. This is a unique area to China and the UK where there is significant complementary expertise in the different grades of and applications for magnesia. The project consortium from the University of Cambridge, University College London, Chongqing University and Nanjing Tech University has the required interdisciplinary mix of materials, structural and geotechnical engineers, with world leading unique expertise in magnesia-based construction materials. The intention is to share and advance our global understanding of the performance of those proposed materials, road map future research and commercial needs and identify the ideal applications in our future energy infrastructures where most performance impact and sustainability benefits can be achieved.The proposed focusses two main areas of research. The first is the technical advantages and benefits that magnesia can provide to existing cement systems. This includes (i) its use as an expansive additive for large mass concrete constructions e.g. dams and nuclear installations, (ii) its role in magnesium phosphate cements for the developing of low pH cements suitable for nuclear waste applications and (iii) its role in advancing the development of alkali activated cements by providing low shrinkage and corrosion resistance. The second is the delivery of sustainable MgO production processes that focus on the use of both mineral and reject brine resources. An integral part of this project will be the knowledge transfer activities and collaboration with industry and other relevant research centres around the world. An overarching aspect of the proposed research is the mapping out of the team's capabilities and the integration of expertise and personnel exchange to ensure maximum impact. This will ensure that the research is at the forefront of the global pursuit for a sustainable future energy infrastructure and will ensure that maximum impact is achieved. The consortium plans to act as a global hub to provide a national and international platform for facilitating dialogue and collaboration to enhance the global knowledge economy.