Building materials characterization, production & testing

The research performed in this group is supported by well-equipped testing facilities:

Processing equipment: planetary ball mill,  high speed mixing, colloidal mixing,  steam generator/ autoclave to produce ASC, high temperature furnace, drying furnaces.

Characterization and analysis of materials: particle size distribution, , specific density,  XRF (Xray fluorescence), XRD (X ray diffraction), thermo graphic analysis TGA/DSC, , infra red (FT-IR),  ion chromatography (anions, cations and transition metal ions).

Air quality analysis: analytical thermal desorption, gas chromatography  mass spectroscopy (ATD/GC/MS) and  GC/PDID (pulse discharge ionization detector) , Horiba NOx, Sox analyzer and a test set-up for determining the air removal ability of functional building materials by photocatalytic oxidation technology.

Concrete performance analysis:  testing machines for concrete performance in fresh state, such as hydration calorimetry and automatic Vicat setting time; and testing machine for concrete in hardened state such as strength testing machine, thermal conductivity analyzer, optical microscopy, chloride diffusion, water penetration under pressure.