Thermal Characterization of Recycled Materials for Building Insulation

Arnas Majumder, Laura Canale, Costantino Carlo Mastino, Antonio Pacitto, Andrea Frattolillo and Marco Dell’Isola
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Arnas Majumder: Department of Civil Engineering, University of Salerno, Via Giovanni Paolo II 132, 84084 Fisciano, Italy
Laura Canale: Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Cassino and South Lazio, 03043 Cassino, Italy
Costantino Carlo Mastino: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Cagliari, 09123 Cagliari, Italy
Antonio Pacitto: Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Cassino and South Lazio, 03043 Cassino, Italy
Andrea Frattolillo: Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Cagliari, 09123 Cagliari, Italy
Marco Dell’Isola: Department of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, University of Cassino and South Lazio, 03043 Cassino, Italy

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 12, 1-16

Abstract: The building sector is known to have a significant environmental impact, considering that it is the largest contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions of around 36% and is also responsible for about 40% of global energy consumption. Of this, about 50% takes place during the building operational phase, while around 10–20% is consumed in materials manufacturing, transport and building construction, maintenance, and demolition. Increasing the necessity of reducing the environmental impact of buildings has led to enhancing not only the thermal performances of building materials, but also the environmental sustainability of their production chains and waste prevention. As a consequence, novel thermo-insulating building materials or products have been developed by using both locally produced natural and waste/recycled materials that are able to provide good thermal performances while also having a lower environmental impact. In this context, the aim of this work is to provide a detailed analysis for the thermal characterization of recycled materials for building insulation. To this end, the thermal behavior of different materials representing industrial residual or wastes collected or recycled using Sardinian zero-km locally available raw materials was investigated, namely: (1) plasters with recycled materials; (2) plasters with natural fibers; and (3) building insulation materials with natural fibers. Results indicate that the investigated materials were able to improve not only the energy performances but also the environmental comfort in both new and in existing buildings. In particular, plasters and mortars with recycled materials and with natural fibers showed, respectively, values of thermal conductivity (at 20 °C) lower than 0.475 and 0.272 W/(m⋅K), while that of building materials with natural fibers was always lower than 0.162 W/(m⋅K) with lower values for compounds with recycled materials (0.107 W/(m⋅K)). Further developments are underway to analyze the mechanical properties of these materials.

Keywords: thermal conductivity; recycled building materials; building insulation materials; sustainable building materials; sustainability; circular economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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