SPECIAL SESSIONS

Call for Special Sessions

Net-Zero Future Conference 2026 will include a technical program featuring a series of Special Sessions to complement the regular program with emerging topics relevant to the conference’s thematic areas.
For those interested in organizing a Special Session, please submit proposals with the following details:

Title of the Special Session and names of the organizers.
Brief biographies of the session organizer(s) with their contact information.
A description of the session (maximum 300 words), highlighting the novelty of the topic and potential interdisciplinary aspects.
List of four contributed papers, including titles, authors, contact information of the corresponding author, and a short abstract for each paper.
Once the special session proposal is accepted, the contributed papers will be submitted in the same format as regular papers. Organizers should not contribute more than two papers.

Check out the Conference Topics

Download template for Special Session proposal

SPECIAL SESSION PROPOSALS DUE

31 March 2026

For submission send us an e-mail to:
netzfuture@wib.tu-darmstadt.de

Corporate Session

SS: Corporate Presentations
Session Organizer: To be announced

Corporate presentations provide an industry-oriented perspective on pathways toward a net-zero future. They showcase practical solutions, innovative technologies, and real-world applications that address climate neutrality, resource efficiency, and sustainable value chains. By connecting scientific advances with industrial implementation, these presentations foster knowledge exchange, highlight current challenges and opportunities, and support the transfer of research outcomes into scalable and impactful practice.

Find out more at our Sponsorship Page

Start-Up & Scale-Up Session

SS: Start-Up & Scale-Up Presentations
Session Organizer: Romildo Dias Toledo Filho

Start-up and scale-up presentations offer an innovation-driven perspective on pathways toward a net-zero future. They highlight agile solutions, emerging technologies, and business models that translate sustainability goals into market-ready applications. By bridging scientific insights, entrepreneurial innovation, and real-world deployment, these presentations foster dynamic knowledge exchange, address key challenges and opportunities, and demonstrate how research-based ideas can be scaled into impactful and commercially viable solutions.

Registration fees for Start-Ups & Scale-Ups are listed at the Registration Page

Approved Special Sessions

SS1: Intelligent Low-Carbon Structures and Infrastructures: From Smart Materials to AI-Driven Performance
Session Organizer: Shima Mahboubi

Intelligent Low-Carbon Infrastructures focus on connecting new materials, digital technologies, and sustainable design strategies. This special session highlights cutting-edge research and practical applications that extend the lifespan and performance of civil structures and infrastructure while reducing environmental impact.

Key topics include intelligent low-carbon materials, AI-driven structural monitoring and optimization, and resource-efficient building methods. The session encourages interdisciplinary approaches, welcoming contributions from robotics, data analytics, materials science, civil and structural engineering, and environmental policy.

By combining innovations from different fields, the session explores how intelligent systems can enable adaptive, resilient, and energy-efficient infrastructure. Contributions that demonstrate the integration of smart materials with AI-enabled performance evaluation are particularly encouraged.

The novelty of this session lies in its holistic focus on sustainability, intelligence, and performance enhancement. It moves beyond conventional design approaches to envision infrastructures that are both low-carbon and high-performing.

The discussion will also address practical implications for urban planning, construction methods, and lifecycle management, emphasizing scalable strategies adaptable to diverse environmental and societal contexts. Overall, the session provides a platform for sharing innovative solutions that accelerate the transition toward low-carbon, high-performance infrastructure systems.

SS2: CARE – Climate-Neutral and Resource-Efficient Construction
Session Organizer: Viktor Mechtcherine, Martin Claßen

The construction sector consumes vast amounts of energy and resources and contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. It also currently suffers from low productivity and arduous working conditions, and is affected by labour shortages, leading to a severe environmental impact in terms of waste, noise and other emissions. In order to mitigate global warming while providing people with affordable, resilient homes and infrastructure, the construction industry requires a disruptive transformation. The newly established Cluster of Excellence “CARE”, acronym for “Climate-neutral And Resource-Efficient construction” at TUD Dresden University of Technology and RWTH Aachen University, aims to contribute to this transition by pursuing ground-breaking advances in key areas of the construction of the present and future. These advances in various branches of the construction value chain will come together to create game-changing paradigms.

As part of CARE’s mission to transfer knowledge and promote internationalisation, the proposed mini-symposium aims to bring together experts from around the world to share new, cutting-edge research on emerging frontiers in the construction sector, such as:

Net-zero carbon mineral-bonded building materials;
Innovative design principles for material optimisation, reusable modular construction, structural circularity;
Digitised and automated manufacturing technologies for reduced labour and increase
manpower safety.

Cross-disciplinary and interconnected research areas also encompass:

Digital methodologies for material properties prediction, semantic modelling, human robot interaction, geometric design optimisation and data interoperability;
Broad sustainability frameworks, including environmental sustainability, resource
nexus, social acceptance of novel technologies.

Find out more at the website: CARE

SS3: Priority Programme “Net-Zero Concrete” (SPP 2436)
Session Organizer: Neven Ukrainczyk, Thomas Matschei

The “Net-Zero Concrete” (SPP 2436) programme follows a multidisciplinary research approach, integrating cement chemistry, concrete technology, physical chemistry, materials physics, and sustainability science, while also addressing resource reusability, circularity, and adaptable production processes. The overarching objective is the development of net-zero concrete through alternative binders, renewable or waste-based aggregates, and advanced carbonation strategies.

Three complementary research modules structure the programme:

Module 1: Alternative and Carbon-Neutral Binders
This module investigates clinker-free and ultra-low-clinker binder systems, including waste-based and CO₂-binding materials. Emphasis is placed on understanding thermodynamics, reaction kinetics, microstructural evolution, and hydration or polycondensation mechanisms, with the goal of overcoming current limitations such as reduced early-age strength compared to Portland cement.

Module 2: Construction and Demolition Waste and Renewable Aggregates
This module focuses on transforming concrete into a circular, recyclable, and separable material. Novel aggregate systems based on waste streams or renewable resources are developed to replace conventional natural aggregates, aiming for carbon neutrality, full recyclability, and compliance with mechanical and durability requirements.

Module 3: Concrete Carbon Capture and Long-Term Carbon Sink
This module explores mineral carbonation as a pathway for CO₂ utilization and permanent storage in concrete. Research addresses calcium- and magnesium-based carbonation mechanisms, CO₂ curing processes, and long-term carbon binding throughout the concrete life cycle, requiring an interdisciplinary assessment of chemical, physical, and durability-related aspects.

Find out more at the website: Net-Zero Concrete

SS4: Bio-Based Energy-Efficient Materials And Structures For Tomorrow
Session Organizers: Eddie Koenders, Enzo Martinelli

The session is calling for research reports and scientific breakthroughs on the main components employed in bio-based concrete, viz. alternative bio-based SCMs, renewable bio-aggregates, and CO₂ absorbing bio-based additions like fibers, aggregates, etc., that contribute to neutral concretes. Novel research pathways towards climate-neutral bio-based concretes are reported in this session. Multidisciplinary research covering cement chemistry, concrete technology, civil and bio-based materials engineering, as well as related scientific areas such as physical chemistry, reaction thermodynamics and kinetics, and physics of materials, but also reusability and adaptability of resources and production procedures are considered. The session is open to papers in the following three research categories:

✓ Experimental and numerical research on bio-based binders and/or clinker materials in terms of composition and reactivity of individual phases and CO₂ interactions;

✓ Bio-based and/or renewable aggregate systems that have the potential to absorb CO₂ are fully recyclable and/or reusable in an end-of-life scenario;

✓ Advanced bio-based additions to maximize CO₂ uptake in concrete production during and after service life.

This mini-symposium mainly aims to report the preliminary results of the international research project “Bio-based Energy-efficient Materials and Structures for Tomorrow” (BEST), which the EU granted as part of the Horizon Europe Programme (HE-MSCA-SE-2021, n. 101086440).

Find out more at the website: BEST (Bio-based Energy-efficient Materials and Structures for Tomorrow)

SS5: AI-Enabled Non-Destructive Testing and Condition Assessment for Long-Life, Net-Zero Infrastructure
Session Organizers: Amine El Mahdi Safhi, Afaq Ahmed and Mahdi Kioumarsi

Achieving net-zero infrastructure is not only a materials challenge; it is equally a service-life and maintenance-optimization challenge. Non-destructive testing (NDT), structural health monitoring (SHM), and data-driven condition assessment can reduce embodied carbon by preventing premature replacement, targeting repairs where they matter, and enabling risk-based maintenance planning.

This Special Session focuses on novel, field-relevant approaches that integrate sensing technologies, advanced analytics, and decision frameworks to extend service life while supporting net-zero objectives. The session emphasizes interdisciplinary contributions bridging civil engineering, sensing/robotics, data science (AI/ML), and asset management.

Topics include (i) multi-sensor NDT strategies for concrete and complex structures; (ii) AI-enabled interpretation (defect detection/quantification, uncertainty, explainability); (iii) data fusion with physics-informed models and digital twins; (iv) reliability- and risk-based decision support; and (v) linking condition states to whole-life carbon and cost for carbon-aware infrastructure management.

By combining methodological innovations with validated case studies (bridges, dams, marine/port assets, industrial facilities), the session will help define practical pathways from inspection evidence to actionable decisions.

Expected outcomes include clearer performance indicators, reproducible workflows, and shared directions for integrating NDT/SHM into net-zero strategies and policies for infrastructure renewal.

SS6: Recycled Binders
Session Organizers: Jan P. Höffgen, Frank Dehn

Decarbonization of concrete and cement requires the increased application of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs). However, some widely used SCMs, such as blast-furnace slag or coal fly ash, experience regional shortages with a bleak perspective. Therefore, research focuses on the identification of new types of SCMs, which need to be abundantly available. This applies in particular to fine mineral waste containing concrete or masonry.

The high porosity of these fines inhibits their application as fine aggregates. However, suitable processing enables their use as SCMs. Foremost, grinding is necessary to produce particles that are suitable for inclusion in the binder matrix. Potentially unhydrated cement particles may outcrop and retain their original activity, while masonry typically exhibits a low pozzolanic reactivity. Mechanochemical activation can further increase reactivity.

In addition, several methods exist for activating hydrated cement paste. Carbonation produces calcium carbonate as a carbon sink alongside an alumina-silica gel, which exhibits high pozzolanic reactivity. Thermal activation dehydrates hardened cement paste and yields hydraulic phases.

The use of these processed waste fines, however, is limited by their generally lower reactivity compared to Portland cement, especially for wastes with low cement paste contents. Alternatively, it is feasible to include waste fines in the cement clinker raw meal. In this case, the substitution of calcium carbonate reduces CO₂ emissions, although this approach is constrained by the narrow compositional limits of clinker raw meals.

While all four procedures have proven effective in reducing the overall CO₂ emissions of concrete production, each exhibits specific advantages and disadvantages along the process chain, which will be highlighted in this special session.