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Using clothing waste, a team from the Textile Technology Research Team of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya – Barcelona Tech, has created a material for construction that will revalue a ton of textile waste and save energy and CO₂ emissions into the atmosphere. It is a fabric made from fibers from clothing waste.
With this, the result is a material that improves the properties of fiber cement and can be used as a construction material. The team has managed to manufacture, among other elements: facades, roof tiles, floor tiles and masonry reinforcement systems. It is concluded that the product is very resistant, more flexible than other construction materials, fireproof and contributes significantly to reducing the environmental impact in construction.
In this sense, Josep Claramunt explains the different uses that have been given to this new material, such as the manufacture of panels for ventilated facades of low weight, impermeable to water, which are thermal insulators, with great stability to thermo-hygrometric variations. , with high resistance and ductility and very good durability. “We have also manufactured fine tiles for light flooring with water impermeability, good stability to variations, wear-resistant, non-slip, with very good mechanical and durability properties,” he explains.
The team is made up of researchers Mònica Ardanuy, Heura Ventura and Helen Oliver, as professors at the Higher School of Industrial, Aerospace and Audiovisual Engineering in Terrassa; and the researcher Josep Claramunt, also a professor at ESEIAAT and the Barcelona School of Agroalimentary Engineering and Biosystems (EEABB).
To obtain these new construction materials with optimal properties, the team had to optimize non-woven fabrics to act as reinforcement within the cement. Once the nonwoven fabric is obtained, it is mixed with cement and other additional minerals and undergoes a process of lamination, dehydration, pressing and curing.
Researchers have proven that the new material has a much lower energy impact and CO₂ emissions in almost all categories, compared to traditional materials used in construction. A factor that must be taken into account, since both this sector and the textile sector produce a very important part of the carbon dioxide emissions and waste generated by industrial activity.
The textile industry produces 90 million tons of waste, which ends up incinerated, and the construction sector, one third of the world's greenhouse emissions, 7% correspond to cement production.
Mònica Ardanuy believes that “with our work we provide a commercial outlet for waste that until now was burned or accumulated in industrial landfills, with an impact on greenhouse emissions and the pollution that this entails.” The new construction material created by this team of UPC researchers "is a good example of the use of waste applied to two sectors that are as polluting and energy-consuming as textiles and construction."
Now, the team will begin the industrial scaling study process to reach the commercialization of the new material. The project has been funded by the State Research Agency and has received the award for the best project from Textile Manufacturers and presented at the annual congress that took place last year in the Chinese city of Keqiao.
