Advanced Concrete Materials for Infrastructure Sustainability: Electromagnetic Shielding, Energy Harvesting, and Radiation Protection Integration

Abstract Concrete infrastructures increasingly face critical challenges, including electromagnetic interference (EMI)-induced corrosion, elevated energy demands, and ionizing radiation exposure, which undermine durability and resilience. This review synthesizes advancements integrating metamaterials, energy harvesting technologies, and radiation shielding into concrete systems. Metamaterial-enhanced concrete achieves EMI shielding effectiveness exceeding 99% absorption at GHz frequencies while mitigating corrosion in embedded steel reinforcement. Simultaneously, piezoelectric, triboelectric, and quantum dot-based composites enable ambient energy harvesting from mechanical, thermal, and solar sources, supporting self-powered structural health monitoring and smart cathodic protection systems. Advanced radiation-shielding concretes incorporating bismuth oxides, rare-earth additives, and multilayered architectures provide superior attenuation of gamma and neutron radiation while maintaining mechanical integrity. Beyond treating these three domains in isolation, this paper systematically identifies the shared material platforms (e.g., high-Z and carbon-based fillers, nanostructured binders) and common mechanisms (electromagnetic interaction, charge transport, and energy dissipation) that simultaneously govern shielding, harvesting, and radiation attenuation. The review provides a cross-domain comparison of design strategies, performance metrics, and durability issues, and maps explicit pathways for integrating multiple functionalities within a single concrete system. This review critically examines material innovations, performance mechanisms, experimental methodologies, and remaining gaps. It highlights the transformative potential of multifunctional concrete systems for sustainable, intelligent infrastructure, and identifies future research priorities spanning durability, life-cycle performance, and scalable manufacturing.