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Construction

The construction and use of buildings has a huge environmental impact in terms of final energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, materials extracted, water consumption and waste generated.

The use of plastics and composites contributes to innovative architectural solutions and more efficient and sustainable construction. Insulation, plastic films for vapour barriers and ventilated façades help to reduce the energy required to heat or cool a home. Polymeric materials are used in architectural structures, pipes, aesthetic and functional paints and coatings and increasingly in civil engineering.

Since 2020, the European Union has adopted a strategy for sustainable waste management. Within this framework, 70% of Construction and Demolition Waste (C&DW) must be recovered.

Solutions

We offer solutions for use in the manufacture and reinforcement of concrete by incorporating plastic and composite reinforcements (e.g. rods), recycled materials and auxiliary elements for formworking, as well as polymer concrete formulations.

We use polymeric materials for civil works in elements such as composite pipes and tanks for chemical and desalination plants, urban water conduits, urban furniture or in pultrusion profiles for beams.

We provide solutions for architectural and building applications, such as composite panels for façades, thermal and acoustic insulation, sandwich panels and structures for floors, walls and ceilings, plastic walls as aesthetic finishes and imitation textures.

We also research more sustainable composites from renewable natural sources and recyclable composites, and develop both flame retardant materials to meet the Technical Building Code (CTE) in terms of reaction to fire and sanitary applications. We also provide circular economy solutions for construction and demolition waste (CDW) and assess the environmental impact of buildings and sustainable management.

We work on water reuse and soil recovery through biological and combined treatments.

Major Projects

Foto 12 hormigon polimerico

The main aim of the project is to develop a highly sustainable active-passive system to carry out energy retrofitting throughout the interior of a building envelope. GAIKER’s research has focused on developing and characterising new, more economic and robust vacuum insulation panels (VIPs). 

 

foto 72 panel sandwich

The aim of this project is to develop new efficient processes with which to manufacture lightweight panels more quickly and economically. GAIKER's research is focused on developing and characterising lightweight multi-material fireproof panels by bonding skins and cores using adhesives and co-moulding, thereby replacing the traditional processes of manufacturing composites by manual moulding and infusion, i.e. a modular manufacturing process based on lightweight panels assembled by bonding, avoiding the need to invest in moulds of considerable size.

foto 61 ecoretech

The aim of the project is to develop structural panels for applications in road transport vehicles and in formwork panels, which incorporate agglomerates made from recycled material from industrial composite waste in their core, thereby reducing composite waste and improving their environmental impact. GAIKER's lines of research are geared towards developing and characterising structural panels.

Iceberg

Design, development and evaluation of a prototype for automatically identifying and sorting plastic waste, with brominated flame retardants based on laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) applied to plastics from WEEE, CDW and aviation, developing recycled plastic formulations and demonstrating their validity in high value applications.

This project received funding from the European Commission's Horizon 2020 research and development programme under contract number 869336.

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