Construction and works

Ihobe Eusko Jaurlaritza
TECNALIA

CIRCULAR ECONOMY OF ConSTRUCTION MATERIALS

Construction, Renovation and Demolition Waste (CDW) is one of the heaviest and bulkiest waste streams generated in the EU and, as such, is a priority in the Circular Economy legal provisions of all administrations, as set out, for example, in the European Green Deal and in the 2030 Environmental Framework Programme for the Basque Country.

The succession of different projects in the field of CDW in recent years has enabled increasingly ambitious initiatives to be tackled and demonstrated, in which digitalisation plays a major role, with practical demonstration cases that enable technologies to be validated for their implementation on a larger scale. The relevance of the sector in the Basque Country is extensive, as is reflected in the continuous publication of guides and catalogues of good practices by IHOBE, such as the report on "Inclusion of secondary materials in works specifications" (2023), the "Guide to sustainable industrialised construction in the Basque Country" (2021), and the "Good practices in the use of recycled materials in civil works in the Basque Country" (2019).

COLLABORATORS

ICEBERG, led by the TECNALIA Technology Centre, is a project with 35 participating entities from different European countries. The project implements advances in the circular economy in the construction sector through the development of innovative circular reverse logistics tools and high value secondary raw material production technologies, to gain market confidence and acceptability of recycled building materials at the end of their useful life.

The project aims to design, develop, demonstrate and validate advanced technologies for the production of high purity secondary raw materials (more than 92% in weight) through 6 circular case studies across Europe, covering the circularity of wood, concrete, mixed aggregates, gypsum boards, glass, polymeric insulating foams and inorganic super insulation materials. Three innovative reverse circular logistics solutions are being applied: an intelligent pre-demolition tool assisted by building information modelling (BIM) (with more than 80% accuracy in waste quantification); an innovative digital traceability platform for end-of-life building materials (EBM); and an identification system based on radio frequency and QR codes.

The development of innovative technologies for EBM recovery includes: hyper spectral (HSI) technology, machine learning software and robotic manipulators to increase the efficiency of mixed aggregate sorting; an optimised integrated crushing, sorting and cleaning system and fast pyrolysis and purification processes for wood fractions; mobile thermal attrition unit; hydrocyclone combined with acid sorting and purification to increase the purity of recycled gypsum boards; a combined purification and solvolysis process for polymeric insulating foams; and advanced hydrothermal processing of glass and silica that contain waste.

ICEBERG is a further development of the HISER project. IHOBE's participation has promoted the implementation of ICEBERG case studies in the Basque Country, which are relevant due to their replicability (in this case focusing on circular ceramic products, silica aerogel and polyurethane-based products), as well as implementing the technical developments of the project in technical regulations in the Basque Country, thus contributing to the transfer of the results.

Project website

The design of the ICEBERG project has been technically and financially supported by IHOBE within the framework of the "ECOINNOVATION PROJECT FACTORY" initiative. ICEBERG has been funded by the European HORIZON 2020 programme with IHOBE as a partner.