Insulating Building Components Made from a Mixture of Waste and Vegetal Materials: Thermal Characterization of Nine New Products

Maria La Gennusa,Concettina Marino,Maria Francesca Panzera,Matilde Pietrafesa,Antonino Nucara

doi:10.3390/su132413820

Maria La Gennusa, Concettina Marino + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su132413820

Copy DOI

Abstract

Nowadays, energy efficiency and sustainability are the fulcra of building policies. These policies promote the use of new technologies and materials that can reduce the primary energy involved and the environmental costs of construction, guarantying at the same time a high level of comfort for the building’s occupants. Synergy between previous construction techniques and the use of new materials should be pursued by employing materials with a low environmental impact and optimal thermal insulation properties. Within this framework, new materials derived from the agriculture sector, and waste or recycling products from the industrial/agricultural sectors have been studied. The aim of this paper is to contribute to this field by analysing the insulation properties of new environmentally friendly materials composited from waste or vegetal products for their applications within the construction sector. Measurements of the thermal conductivity of nine different samples are carried out, obtaining promising results suggesting that these products can be used as feasible alternatives to the materials traditionally used for construction and insulation. However, further analyses are certainly recommended, to assess the samples’ structural properties and the influence of pre-treatments on the samples.

Highlights

Issues regarding climate change and environmental impact are central in the norms of every country [1]
The construction sector has a pivotal role within this framework, due to its high potential to reduce pollutant emissions
The analysis aimed to study how temperature influences thermal conductivity; the thermal gradient across the specimens was set to 20 ◦ C—which is within the limits stated by the pertinent technical standard [53]—each measurement run involved several average temperatures

Summary

Introduction

Issues regarding climate change and environmental impact are central in the norms of every country [1]. 4.0 [11,12,13], proposing the concept of a circular economy: a society without waste, where recycling and reusing are the bases to obtain net-zero emissions. Such issues have led, in recent years, to the use of new materials in the construction sector to create eco-compatible buildings. In recent years, to the use of new materials in the construction sector to create eco-compatible buildings These buildings are characterized both by a low environmental impact and high indoor comfort for occupants, thanks to their good thermo-physical properties and low embodied energy [14]

Objectives

Results

Conclusion