Eco Materials

Materials are not infinitely renewable. Therefore, reducing the quantity of materials consumed is important in establishing sustainable building practices. Reusing and recycling practices divert materials from the waste stream for the usable purposes and reduce the environmental impacts associated with producing new materials and products.

GORD tackles the scarcity of materials through comprehensive research and testing programs.  The eco materials related research projects seek the development of sustainable, viable and commercially competitive materials to be used in the construction of durable, high-quality buildings and infrastructure.

Environmental Sciences

GORD Institute’s research activities focus on two broad areas: outdoor native vegetation; and indoor environmental quality.
The outdoor native vegetation research includes: propagation of seedlings in nurseries; assessing drought and salinity tolerances of the seedlings; evaluating the performance of the selected plants under different urban conditions; and, determining the germination requirements for the collected seeds of different species.
The human comfort and health research for indoor environmental quality identifies the key performance indicators and document the relationships between occupant health, productivity and behavior change. 

Renewable Energy

GORD Institute renewable energy research aims to enhance the performance of new renewable energy technologies as well as testing and assessing the performance of existing technologies under local environmental conditions. The research projects are related to Photovoltaic (PV), Photovoltaic Thermoelectric Power Generation (PVTEG), Concentrating Photovoltaic systems (CPV), Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV), Photovoltaic and Thermal collectors (PVT), Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), solar cooling, solar ponds, wind energy, solar driven Organic Rankine Cycles (ORC) systems, thermal and power storages, and on-grid and off-grid integrations