Tag Archives: Construction Specifications Canada

Construction materials and a McGill University physicist

At the Construction Specifications Canada (CSC) conference, May 25 – 29, 2011 in Montréal, PeterGrutter, a physics professor at McGill University (located in Montréal, Québec) noted that nanotechnology will have a huge impact on the construction industry. From  Greg Meckbach’s June 7, 2011 article for the online version of the Daily Commercial News and Construction Record,

“Fundamentally, you can change a lot of the properties, curing times, energy consumption in major building materials by using various types of nano materials” he said.

Grutter made his remarks during a presentation at the CSC annual conference at Montreal’s Delta Centre Ville.

He said silicon dioxide has a “huge potential benefit” because if you reduce the size of the silicon particles to nanometer-scale, you could form concrete with fewer pores.

“It will stop infiltration of water and that infiltration of water is what leads to degradation of concrete.”

Grutter added iron oxide can increase tensile strength and abrasion resistance of materials but he stressed he cannot predict how quickly advances in nanotechnology will be widely used in construction.

Grutter did go on to comment about possible health issues in a way that suggests his investigation of the topic has been hasty,

In addition to cost, there are concerns about contamination and the health effects on people exposed to nanomaterials, he said.

“In the construction industry, if you use nanoparticles, the workers can be exposed to these particles and someone might live there,” he said. “We might not see these potential benefits implemented in society that quickly.”

Assessing health risks is time consuming, Grutter said. [emphases mine]

“… workers can be exposed to [nano]particles and someone might live there,” seems a little sketchy doesn’t it? As for the time it takes to assess health risks, I’m not sure what point Grutter is making with that comment. Still I have to say that I’m thrilled about this next bit,

Another potential application is self-cleaning walls, where the material emulates the properties of hydrophobic leaves.

Instead of sliding off, water rolls off, and with surface tension the water brings dirt off with it, so it remains self cleaning.

“It would be really cool, because essentially what that means is that to clean off sides of buildings you would just have to wait for it to rain.”

Self-cleaning buildings? Does this mean there’ll also be self-cleaning windows? I hope so.