Thermal performance evaluation of bio-bricks and conventional bricks in residential buildings in Aswan city, Egypt

Abstract

From raw material extraction to final product disposal, the construction industry is integrally involved in every stage of the greenhouse gas emissions life cycle. One of the main causes of the climate catastrophe is the increasing use of polluting energy sources to power our homes and businesses. This massive problem of global warming has now forced countries to act. To further address sustainability, they seek to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions by adopting more sustainable materials. The current trend in scientific research is to use waste resources to improve the properties of various materials to exacerbate the problems of climate change because of the use of traditional building materials. Therefore, one of the most environmentally friendly alternatives to the standard procedure is the use of agricultural residues to improve the quality of building materials. This improvement will modify the thermal properties of building materials such as bricks, which will lead to an improvement in energy efficiency inside buildings, especially residential buildings. As a result, the research focused solely on simulating several bio-brick alternatives that had been discovered in earlier studies in order to test their viability in terms of increasing the energy efficiency of residential buildings in one of the hot cities. The study demonstrated that using bio-building materials can lower energy usage. In addition to saving energy in residential constructions, rice straw cement bricks and sugarcane bricks have operating efficiency rates of roughly 7% and 12%, respectively. All these advancements over conventional brick reduce greenhouse gas emissions and carbon dioxide.