Recyclability Process of Gypsum Reinforced with Hemp Fabrics: Impact and Flexural Behaviour

Antonio Langella,Davide Mocerino,Fabio Iucolano,Fabrizio Memola Capece Minutolo,Luca Boccarusso,Massimo Durante

doi:10.25518/esaform21.4044

Abstract

Gypsum is an ancient material, still widely used and suitable for many applications in the constructions due to its low cost, availability, lightweight, good thermal and sound isolating behaviour, fire resistance and low energy consumption. One of the most established application is its use as building walls and as pointed out in authors previous research works, it can be very useful and interesting to reinforce the gypsum with vegetable fibres like hemp. This aspect is in line with the current world situation where every industrial company needs to decrease the materials waste, increase recyclability and use more eco-friendly materials. Therefore, this work aims at designing, manufacturing, and testing of both commercial and recycled gypsum specimens reinforced with hemp fabrics, in order to improve impact and flexural resistance of traditional gypsum boards. The recycling process was carefully studied to detect the best grinding time, temperature and time of the heat treatment required to allow the reutilization of gypsum powders. Three point bending and impact tests at different energy levels were carried out in order to understand how the presence of the hemp fabrics within the gypsum matrix and how the recycling process affect the mechanical response of reinforced gypsum.

Highlights

Gypsum is one of the earliest building materials and its application history can be traced back to 4000 years ago [1,2,3]
Low energy consumption and price, good aesthetic appearance, good fire resistance, good recyclability, good sound and thermal isolation properties, make gypsum one of the most important construction materials used in house building applications and often it is preferable to other building materials [4,5,6]
Gypsum was reinforced with hemp fabrics in order to overcome some typical limitations of gypsum, like the low impact resistance and flexural resistance and to promote the development of a sustainable and environmentally friendly production of building materials studying the possibility of recycling

Summary

Introduction

Gypsum is one of the earliest building materials and its application history can be traced back to 4000 years ago [1,2,3]. Low energy consumption and price, good aesthetic appearance, good fire resistance, good recyclability, good sound and thermal isolation properties, make gypsum one of the most important construction materials used in house building applications and often it is preferable to other building materials (wood, plywood, etc.) [4,5,6]. Contrary to these advantages, gypsum is not characterized by high mechanical properties especially when impact and flexural loads, whose occurrence is very likely for building structures, are considered. Several studies showed that glass fibre reinforced plaster materials possess appreciable toughness values [6,8] but it is important to highlight that the high cost of glass fibres represents a handicap for their association with a cheap material like gypsum and noteworthy is that the use of glass fibres is not in line with the global request for reducing the environmental impact of products considering that the use of glass fibres as reinforcement can involve workers’ health problems during manufacturing, recycling or during the lifetime after an accidental breaking [9]

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