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About SUME

Shaping the sustainable materials of tomorrow

SUME (Sustainable Materials Engineering) is the materials research group at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, bringing together expertise in metals, inorganic materials, (bio)polymers, biomaterials, and the interfaces that connect them. Born from the merger of complementary research teams, SUME was created around a simple ambition: to understand, design, and accelerate the development of sustainable materials that can address society’s most pressing challenges.

Our research starts with a fundamental question: how can we design materials with the right performance, durability, circularity, and environmental footprint from the very beginning? To answer it, we combine experimental science, predictive modelling, AI and life cycle thinking, linking structure, processing and end-of-life to create new design principles for sustainable innovation.

Our research covers six interconnected domains:

• Sustainable building materials, including low-carbon binders, circular cementitious systems, advanced composites, and additive manufacturing.
• Metallic materials, with expertise in corrosion, surface engineering, recycling, additive manufacturing, and alloy development.
• Hybrid materials and interfaces, where interphases govern performance, durability, and functionality.
• Energy materials, spanning batteries, electrochemical systems, recycling technologies, and materials acceleration platforms.
• Circular polymers, focusing on durable, recyclable, self-healing, and adaptive materials.
• Bio-based and biomaterials, where renewable feedstocks, engineered biological systems, and sustainable design converge.

What makes SUME unique is our ability to work across material classes and length scales, from atoms to engineering systems. Combining advanced characterization, operando analyses, multiscale modelling and AI-assisted discovery, we not only understand materials but predict their behaviour, accelerating the path from insight to real-world impact.

Professor Guy Van Assche
Head of the SUME research group