Can engineers help to build peace? Can the solutions engineers develop in places of conflict, contribute to the development of low carbon? They can. And Engineering Matters listeners can help with this important work.

Over the past decade, many of Syria’s urban areas have been ravaged by aerial bombardment and shelling by artillery. It is a land of lives lost and cities destroyed. But in the country’s northwest, an engineer is working among the rubble to establish an independent university that will allow internally displaced teenagers and post grads to continue their studies. 

With the help of Cara, the Council for At-Risk Academics, he has collaborated with researchers at Sheffield and Middle East Technical University to study ways to use post-conflict rubble as aggregate. In a country that has seen 135,000 buildings destroyed, this may speed reconstruction, while cutting carbon costs. With small mobile equipment local Syrians will also be able to separate smaller particles, for re-activation and use as binder. Techniques like this could be used around the world to produce new concrete from demolished buildings.

Guests

Abdulkader Rashwani — Assistant Professor, Chemical Engineering, Sham University, Aleppo, Syria

Theodore Hanein — UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, Materials Science and Engineering, University of Sheffield, UK

Kate Robertson — consultant (Middle East/Syria Programme Adviser), Cara

Resources

Rebuilding Syria from the Rubble: Recycled Concrete Aggregate from War-Destroyed Buildings