embodied energy” wastes of industrial mineral exploitation (i.e. perlite, amorphous silica
and other
volcanic
minerals), recycled rejects from the glass industry, and mineral wastes with high alkali content as alkali activators. Christos Dedeloudis explains a little more
about the materials created during the project. “The group of products we have made are called 3i materials, because they are inorganic, insulating and incombustible. They have very low embodied energy compared to conventional insulation materials.” One of the main issues with measuring embodied energy of materials during the project was what unit to use. “We used embodied energy per functional unit, with one functional unit defined as 1m2 of insulation that has a thermal resistance of 1 (m2
K)/W” explains Dedeloudis. “This
allowed us to compare each material in an objectively useful way.” One of the products created in the project
is what is known as a loose filling material. These are usually placed inside cavity walls, which are commonly found in houses of northwestern Europe built after 1900. These walls used to be left hollow since they were mainly used to control humidity, but nowadays they are filled with insulating material. The loose filling material designed by the LEEMA project is created by firstly taking industrial waste and by-products and then mixing them with an alkali solution to produce a gluey paste. This is then hardened, after which it is crushed up and then expanded using IR heating. “This process of expansion is a new technique which uses very little energy compared to the energy needed to expand perlite, a conventional filling material,” says Dedeloudis. “Our process requires temperatures of around 500°C, while perlite needs temperatures closer to 1,200°C.” The loose filling material created by
LEEMA has 60 per cent lower embodied energy than expanded perlite and 76 per cent lower embodied energy than expanded polystyrene beads (EPS). These are excellent figures, exceeding the original objectives of the project. The loose filling material is also being used
to create insulated masonry elements. One of the partners is manufacturing these bricks using an infill of expanded perlite and a binding system. The projects partners created a grade of the filling material that could be used within exactly the same production process, and which had around 56 per cent lower embodied energy resulting in a brick of with 13% lower embodied energy.
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Fibre boards are commonly used in
buildings for interior and exterior applications where fire protection is required. One of the LEEMA partners uses expanded perlite in their fibre board production, but the project has made a specially designed loose filling material that can be used instead in a similar production process. The new boards have similar density but higher strength, or can be made lighter with a similar strength. They also have 20 per cent lower embodied energy. Using a similar process that is used to
create the loose filling material, the project partners were able to create inorganic polymer pastes called binders. “We were very pleased with this achievement as it was not easy,” says Dedeloudis. These binders are
easy to
methods such as casting and extrusion, have good mechanical properties and
thermal conductivity, and can be used to replace standard clay-based binders. The unique properties of the binder created
in the LEEMA project mean that it could be used to create an entire brick, rather than just using loose filling material. “You can extrude the binder and make the whole thing out of 3i material with an overall 53 per cent reduction of embodied energy,” says Dedeloudis. “This could also be applied to fibre boards leading to a reduction of 43 per cent embodied energy for the whole board. This is quite a futuristic approach, and although it has not happened as part of the LEEMA project, it is something we will consider for the future.” Another material created for the project
shape using conventional
was the foamed blocks. These lightweight blocks were created using similar processes as the others, and can be used in the place of aerated autoclaved concrete (AAC).
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