Organisation profile

Head of research group: Per Møldrup

Research focus

Research efforts
The Soil Technology Research Group works with characterization, constitutive function development and modelling of parameters and processes in soil-based porous media. Our research ranges far from porous media systems to urban and cultivated soils, groundwater aquifers, and crop- and soil-based building materials. Two examples of our research are 1) using glacial rock flour from Greenlandic fjords as cultivated soil amendment and soil improvement material (project "NewLand"), and 2) the design of techno-soils for life support systems (e.g. food production, water cleaning, and shelter materials) on space stations, Moon and Mars (reduced-gravity space soil research).

Urban soils and their role in the urban water balance and, hereunder, the run-off and subsequent flooding risk from urban green areas under present and future climate is another quickly evolving research area. 

Working closely together with the Division for Sustainability, Energy and Indoor Environment and the Energy Research Group, we have introduced an ensemple of new soil physics based material characterization methods for heat, air and moisture behavior of biobased building mateials. Together we work towards a concept of a full biomaterial and carbon storage cycle from soil to building and back to the soil as soil quality and health amendment.

Cooperation
The Soil Technology Research Group conducts research at the highest international level within porous media physics and physical-biochemical behavior of natural porous media systems, and we teach at Aalborg University. We have close collaboration in research projects and graduate (MSc and PhD) program teaching with especially Aarhus University-Foulum (Agroecology) nationally, and internationally with a number of universities in the US (e.g. Arizona, California, and Delaware) and Japan (e.g. Tokyo, Saitama, and Hiroshima).

We offer a 30+-year internationally recognized research environment withinin soil physical parameters and processes, and present members as well as previously educated scientists in the group have been elected Fellows of the Soil Science Society of America and recipients of the Don and Betty Kirkham Soil Physics Award.