Sundar Rathnarajan presented an overview of the outcomes of project NanoSeaCon in the 10th International conference on Concrete under severe conditions – Environment and loading held at Chennai, India between 25th and 27th September 2024. The presentation was titled as “Sustainable nano-modified seawater concrete with enhanced service life”. A complete overview of optimizing the suitable mixes for producing seawater concrete and the enhancement in properties of concrete with the addition of nanoparticles were demonstrated. The discussion on seawater-sea sand concrete sparked a keen interest among the experts and the notable suggestions were shared by renowned experts on the possible way forward in this topic. A large group of researchers including 300 Indian participants and 50+ foreign delegates were attending the conference and that had provided an opportunity for the PI of the project to network with notable and active researchers working on various aspects of construction materials and structural engineering.

Dr. Sundar Rathnarajan attended and presented at the RILEM conference on Sustainable Materials & Structures (SMS) 2024, which is a part of the 78th Annual RILEM Week. The RILEM conference was conducted in Toulouse, France, between 25^th and 30^th August 2024. Dr. Rathnarajan presented a part of work from the NanoSeaCon project titled “Corrosion assessment of embedded reinforcement in nano-modified seawater-mixed concrete."  The ongoing electrochemical measurements on the ASTM G109 specimens were reported and discussed as an oral presentation to the participants of the conference. The presentation was well received, and useful inputs were provided for further analysis of the research results. Furthermore, the event of such large scale with more than 300 participants provided an opportunity for the PI of the project to network with researchers working on various aspects of construction materials.

Dr. Sundar Rathnarajan participated and presented in the international symposium on nanotechnology in construction materials (NICOM 8) organized by Politechnico di Torino and Politechnico Milano in Catania, Italy, from July 7^th to July 11^th. An oral presentation was delivered by Dr. Rathnarajan on the topic “Improving the resistivity of seawater-mixed concrete with the inclusion of nanoparticles and supplementary cementitious materials."  The feasibility of producing high-resistive concrete with seawater mixing was demonstrated by presenting the durability and microstructural characteristics of concretes produced with slag, metakaolin, nano-silica, and nano-alumina.  The improvement in the concrete durability properties with seawater mixing was explained, and feedback from the other experts in the fields was duly noted for future work. Furthermore, Dr. Rathnarajan participated in the RILEM workshop on carbon-based nanomaterials for functional cementitious matrices and other roundtable discussions on the suitability of using nanomaterials to improve concrete properties. Furthermore, Dr. Rathnarajan participated in the RILEM workshop on carbon-based nanomaterials for functional cementitious matrices and other roundtable discussions on the suitability of using nanomaterials in improving concrete properties.