Research on cement-based materials is trying to exploit the synergies that nanomaterials can provide. This paper describes the findings reported in the last decade on the improvement of these materials regarding, on the one hand, their mechanical performance and, on the other hand, the new properties they provide. These features are mainly based on the electrical and chemical characteristics of nanomaterials, thus allowing cement-based elements to acquire “smart” functions. In this paper, we provide a quantitative approach to the reinforcements achieved to date. The fundamental concepts of nanoscience are introduced and the need of both sophisticated devices to identify nanostructures and techniques to disperse nanomaterials in the cement paste are also highlighted. Promising results have been obtained, but, in order to turn these advances into commercial products, technical, social and standardisation barriers should be overcome. From the results collected, it can be deduced that nanomaterials are able to reduce the consumption of cement because of their reinforcing effect, as well as to convert cement-based products into electric/thermal sensors or crack repairing materials. The main obstacle to foster the implementation of such applications worldwide is the high cost of their synthesis and dispersion techniques, especially for carbon nanotubes and graphene oxide.

EU regulations are gradually moving towards policies that reduce energy consumption and its environmental impact. To reach this goal, improving energy efficiency in residential buildings is a key action line. The European Parliament adopted the Near Zero-Energy Building (nZEB) as the energy efficiency paradigm through Directive 2010/31/EU, but a common technical and legislative framework for energy renovations is yet to be established. In this paper, the nZEB definition by COHERENO was adopted to evaluate several energy renovation packages in a given building, which is also representative of the Spanish building stock. Global costs are calculated for all of them following EPBD prescriptions. Two economic scenarios are analysed: with entirely private funding and with the current public financial incentives, respectively. The results show the divergence between optimum solutions in terms of costs and of minimum CO₂ footprint and maximum energy saving. Moreover, in the absence of enough incentives, some inefficient renovations could achieve a global cost close to the optimal cost. The optimum solution both in terms of energy performance and global costs was carried out and described.

There is an urgent need for energy efficiency in buildings within the European framework, considering its environmental implications, and Europe’s energy dependence. Furthermore, the need for enhancing and increasing productivity in the building industry turns new technologies and building energy performance simulation environments into extremely interesting solutions towards rigorous analysis and decision making in renovation within acceptable risk levels. The present work describes a multidisciplinary approach for the estimation of the energy performance of an educational building. The research involved data acquisition with advanced geomatic tools, the development of an optimized building information model, and energy assessment in Building Performance Simulation (BPS) software. Interoperability issues were observed in the different steps of the process. The inspection and diagnostic phases were conducted in a timely, accurate manner thanks to automated data acquisition and subsequent analysis using Building Information Modeling based tools (BIM-based tools). Energy simulation was performed using Design Builder, and the results obtained were compared with those yielded by the official software tool established by Spanish regulations for energy certification. The discrepancies between the results of both programs have proven that the official software program is conservative in this sense. This may cause the depreciation of the assessed buildings.