THERMAL INSULATION PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF AGGLOMERATED CORK BOARDS

Abstract

For the last few years, the building industry has been focusing on research, on the construction of passive houses, and on the use of natural, local materials that are nontoxic, are recyclable, and can assure good thermal insulation.Cork is a natural material for which qualities have been known since ancient times and that fully meets sustainability requirements.High-quality cork is mainly used to produce bottle stoppers.Because of the manufacturing process, more than 75% of it becomes a waste product.Furthermore, a large amount of waste cork comes from industry, forest cleaning and pruning, and waste selection.This material is then recycled and triturated to obtain cork granulate.Producing cork granulate is a sustainable solution that recycles a waste product, substantially keeps the characteristics of the original material, and turns this waste product into a resource for manufacturing new products, such as insulating boards made up of cork agglomerate, which are increasingly used in the building sector.In this study, certain thermophysical parameters of six agglomerated cork boards were evaluated.Different constituent characteristics of the boards, such as grain size distribution, density, and thickness, were taken into account to evaluate how they would influence insulating performances.The tested agglomerated cork boards showed thermophysical characteristics similar to those of cork bark and even exhibited a higher diffusivity value than natural cork.Ultimately, it may be assumed that agglomerated cork boards are a suitable and sustainable solution particularly for the thermal insulation of buildings in hot climates and when a healthy environment is required.