DIOPMA presents its sustainable materials research at CNMAT 2026

The DIOPMA research group at the Universitat de Barcelona participated in the 18th National Congress on Materials (CNMAT 2026),

held from 16 to 19 June in Portugalete, Bizkaia. Its contributions addressed alternative cements, additive manufacturing, biopolymers, thermal energy storage and waste valorisation.

The team’s participation included oral presentations and posters connecting materials design with the evaluation of manufacturing processes, material behaviour and environmental impacts. Two members of the group, PhD student Carlos Vielma Leal and PhD student Sergio Andrés Ardila Parra, received awards for the best oral presentations by young researchers in their respective symposia.

Two awards for DIOPMA’s young researchers

PhD student Carlos Vielma Leal received the award in the Construction Materials Symposium for his research on the prospective life cycle assessment of mechanical clay activation at industrial scale compared with thermal activation. The study compares both approaches through life cycle assessment (LCA), a methodology for evaluating the environmental impacts associated with a product or process. Its prospective approach allows industrial development scenarios to be examined without presenting those projections as the results of an implementation that has already taken place.

PhD student Sergio Andrés Ardila Parra received the award in the Structural Materials and Tribology Symposium. His presentation addressed the creep behaviour of AISI 347H stainless steel in contact with molten salts and a preliminary evaluation of welded joints. Creep is the progressive deformation that a material can undergo under a sustained load, particularly at elevated temperatures.

Alternative cements and the use of secondary resources

Several contributions were part of the alternative cements research area led by Full Professor Josep Maria Chimenos, with Dr Jofre Mañosa co-leading the research on mechanical activation of secondary resources rich in aluminosilicates. These studies investigate raw materials and processes that could contribute to more sustainable construction materials.

Dr Jofre Mañosa presented the scale-up of mechanical clay activation from the laboratory to a pilot plant. PhD student Josep Marco addressed the mechanical activation of kaolin as an alternative to metakaolin in alkali-activated cement formulations. PhD student Adrián Álvarez Coscojuela presented his research on increasing the reactivity of volcanic ash from La Palma through mechanical activation, to investigate its use as a supplementary cementitious material.

Waste valorisation was also the focus of Full Professor Josep Maria Chimenos’s poster on bottom ash from municipal solid waste incineration. The study examines how particle size influences its use as a supplementary cementitious material, employed to partially replace cement in a formulation.

PhD student Núria Freixa Arumí presented the development of reactive magnesium oxide (MgO) precursors through the controlled calcination of waste hydromagnesite, for alternative magnesium-based cements. PhD student Laura Daniela Ochoa Talero addressed the use of mechanically activated water treatment sludge as a cement substitute.