Hygrothermal evaluation of sustainable insulating panels

Interest in sustainable building materials is recently growing up due to the environmental pollution and the consequent need to reduce energy consumption. The building sector alone is responsible of the major share of the total energy expenditure mainly due to the indoor heating and cooling. This huge amount of energy can be reduced by choosing efficient thermal insulators based on renewable and natural sources. Among the bio-based components the by-products derived from the wood industry or, alternatively, from the food industry residues can represents a serious challenge towards the revaluation of wastes. On the other side the use of paper pulp originated from recycled paper and cardboard can be considered a valid alternative to the traditional components currently present on market. Here an effort has been made to realize a sustainable insulting panel using different recycled components: paper pulp, coffee pods and sawdust powder. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the thermal performances of the recycled-waste based panels. The measurements of the dry-state thermal conductivity, the thermal diffusivity and the volumetric heat capacity were performed by a transient plane source device. Furthermore, a numerical simulation was carried out to perform the hygrothermal behaviour of the best mix for the final experimental insulation panel.