Figures from the EU show that the construction industry uses half of the natural resources we extract globally. If we want to save the planet, we therefore need to identify alternative building materials.
This has prompted researchers across disciplines and national borders to join forces in a bid to investigate whether building materials can be made from e.g., side streams from the production of food and wood products, textile waste or fast-growing aquatic plants and algae.
The goal is to find suitable, fibrous fillers—such as seagrass, sawdust, old trousers or brewer's spent grain—which, when combined with water and a biopolymer turn into a substance that can be 3D-printed or moulded into new building materials.
A polymer is a long chain of molecules used in materials as a binder to stick the other parts together. Biopolymers are natural and biodegradable and the researchers who collaborate in these projects make them from e.g., boiled animal bones or sugars from algae and seaweed.
From DTU, Associate Professor Anders Egede Daugaard and his research group contribute to the search for new building materials with their expertise in polymer production and material characterization—knowledge that comes from their experience with the production of plastics.
The group's focus is on identifying suitable biopolymers and finding the right recipe and the most resource-efficient production methods to make the new materials. They also map the properties of the raw materials to help determine which ones are most suitable.
"Some of the side streams we've been working with improve the properties of the building material, while others worsen them. We are working out how much of the side streams we can add without destroying the material," Anders Egede Daugaard explains.
