The boom of nanotechnology has opened up new opportunities for the use of nanoparticles in building materials. By going small into the nano-scale, it allows the exploitation of the far superior properties. For example, 1-D nano-reinforcement such as carbon nano-tubes and carbon nano-fibers have stiffness and strength that far exceed any of the conventional fiber reinforcement used in building materials. Despite these advantages, these nano-reinforcements remain too costly for building materials and the nano-composites made from these nano-reinforcements potentially suffer from significant size effects in mechanical strength if scaled to much larger sizes for structural applications. This has severely limited its growth in the building industry despite the numerous works in this area since a decade ago. While 2-D nano-reinforcement may not be as effective in enhancing the mechanical properties of nano-composites, its greater advantage lies in its other non-mechanical properties. In this research group, we exploited the barrier properties and electrical conductivities of 2-D graphene nano-platelets to enhance the durability and introduce self sensing functions to the most widely used material in the world - concrete. The low-cost graphene nano-platelets are introduced into the cement matrix by slight modification of the conventional wet-casting process which yield concrete with 500% improvement in resistance against ingress of aggressive fluids and introduced self damage- and strain-sensing functions which opens up new possibilities of creating more durable and smart concrete material with 2-D graphene nano-platelets. 

The boom of nanotechnology has opened up new opportunities for the use of nanoparticles in building materials. By going small into the nano-scale, it allows the exploitation of the far superior properties. For example, 1-D nano-reinforcement such as carbon nano-tubes and carbon nano-fibers have stiffness and strength that far exceed any of the conventional fiber reinforcement used in building materials. Despite these advantages, these nano-reinforcements remain too costly for building materials and the nano-composites made from these nano-reinforcements potentially suffer from significant size effects in mechanical strength if scaled to much larger sizes for structural applications. This has severely limited its growth in the building industry despite the numerous works in this area since a decade ago. While 2-D nano-reinforcement may not be as effective in enhancing the mechanical properties of nano-composites, its greater advantage lies in its other non-mechanical properties. In this research group, we exploited the barrier properties and electrical conductivities of 2-D graphene nano-platelets to enhance the durability and introduce self sensing functions to the most widely used material in the world - concrete. The low-cost graphene nano-platelets are introduced into the cement matrix by slight modification of the conventional wet-casting process which yield concrete with 500% improvement in resistance against ingress of aggressive fluids and introduced self damage- and strain-sensing functions which opens up new possibilities of creating more durable and smart concrete material with 2-D graphene nano-platelets.