Abstract
The ecological transition is a process the building industry is bound to undertake. This study aimed to develop new bio-based building partition typologies and to determine if they are suitable ecological alternatives to the conventional non-renewable ones used today. This work started with the development of a bio-based epoxy composite board and a waste-based sheep wool acoustic absorbent. Six different partition typologies combining conventional and bio-based materials were analyzed. A drywall partition composed of gypsum plasterboard and mineral wool was used as the baseline. First, a cradle-to-gate life cycle assessment was performed to compare their environmental impacts. Secondly, a mathematical simulation was performed to evaluate their airborne acoustic insulation. The LCA results show a 50% decrease in the amount of CO2 equivalent emitted when replacing plasterboard with bio-composite boards. The bio-composites lower the overall environmental impact by 40%. In the case of the acoustic absorbents, replacing the mineral wool with cellulose or sheep wool decreases the carbon emissions and the overall environmental impact of the partition from 4% and 6%, respectively. However, while the bio-based acoustic absorbents used offer good acoustic results, the bio-composites have a lower airborne acoustic insulation than conventional gypsum plasterboard.
Highlights
The building industry is responsible for one-third of the total carbon emissions in the world.Building materials, which usually come from non-renewable sources, are responsible for a big part of those emissions [1]
As it is discussed in subsequent sections, the main reason behind the lower acoustic insulation is likely to be the lower mass of the bio-epoxy composite compared to plasterboard
GWP 100a method, the ReCiPe endpoint method shows that replacing mineral wool with cellulose reduces the impacts by 4.7% and 6.35% with the sheep wool absorbent. Those percentages are small when comparing the impacts of the partitions as a whole, the results show that the carbon emissions of the sheep wool absorbent are around 85% lower than the ones generated by mineral wool, and 70% lower in the case of cellulose fiber
Summary
The building industry is responsible for one-third of the total carbon emissions in the world.Building materials, which usually come from non-renewable sources, are responsible for a big part of those emissions [1]. Transitioning towards sustainable constructions requires finding materials with a lower impact over the environment, and using bio-based materials is possibly the best route [2]. This transition is an especially complex process for the building industry [3]. Potential customers need the assurance that the materials used will perform adequately for decades before investing in a new home. This situation makes stakeholders lean towards safer choices, which tend to have higher impacts on the environment. The life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology has a proven record of success in the evaluation of the environmental performance of both building and Polymers 2020, 12, 1965; doi:10.3390/polym12091965 www.mdpi.com/journal/polymers
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