Politecnico di Torino (POLITO)

https://www.diati.polito.it/en/

Description of the research group

The main research areas are: 

1. Environmental Sanitary Engineering: it faces the engineering aspects connected to the interactions of human activities and the ecosystems, in order to protect them, and to prevent and reclaim chemical, physical and biological contamination of the environmental matrices, using advanced methods and technologies. The basic and applied research is carried out following an integrated approach that includes laboratory, modeling and field activities, with consolidated national and international collaborations with experts in numerous other disciplines, both at academic and professional level. Regarding the reclamation and reuse of waste materials, the research groups has the following expertise: physic-chemical, biological, thermal treatments; recovery of secondary raw materials, critical raw materials and energy from urban and industrial wastes; environmental sanitary risk analysis of the use of recycled products; landfills for non-hazardous and hazardous waste; circular economy principles applied in industries and urban context; analysis of environmental sustainability of reuse, recycle, recovery operations; technical, environmental and economic evaluation of new technologies.

2. Excavation And Safety Engineering: it develops studies and research aimed at the performance of excavations, in both open-pit and underground, in different types of materials, from soft ground to strong rocks, aimed at the construction of tunnels and other infrastructure, and for the exploitation of raw materials from mines and quarries, as well as for environmental rehabilitation, paying attention to the organization of construction sites in compliance with the safety and healthiness of the working environment. The approach to research is highly interdisciplinary, involving various skills related to the study of rocks, soils and land surveying; the investigation techniques undertake experimental studies in the laboratory, on site and theoretical and numerical modelling. The research projects are financed both by public institutions and by private companies. Researchers belonging to the sector regularly publish scientific papers in prestigious international journals; some of them are involved as patent inventors and many of them have positions of primary importance in national and international cultural associations.

3. Raw Materials Engineering: it deals with the scientific and engineering aspects related to primary and secondary resources and to the characterization and treatment processes of raw materials such as minerals, rocks and secondary raw materials such as civil and industrial waste. The characterization of the petrographic and physical-mechanical properties has the purpose of recovering the materials and the enhancement of secondary raw materials recoverable from waste (WEEE, compost, glass). The laboratory is equipped for size and shape determinations, comminution tests, magnetic, electrostatic and gravimetric separations, flotation tests. In the Multimodal Analysis Laboratory, massive, powder and liquid samples are studied both from the point of view of the elemental and mineralogical composition as well as of the morphology of the objects examined, using latest generation laser and X-ray source equipment, as well as sophisticated optical and electronic microscopy systems.