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Green recycling of red brick waste into aerogel panels for thermal insulation in buildings

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Abstract

The building sector has faced significant challenges due to its high energy consumption and waste management issues. Huge amounts of construction and demolition waste are abandoned in the streets or accumulated in landfills each year, which can negatively impact the environment if it’s not managed correctly. Moreover, the use of heating and cooling systems is the major reason for making the building sector the most energy-harvesting sector and raising its greenhouse gas emissions. To deal with this situation, the demand for heat insulation materials has increased recently. This study suggests a promising solution lies in using waste brick as a precursor for aerogel synthesis instead of expensive and toxic organosiloxane precursors. This is a more cost-effective, feasible, and environmentally friendly approach to producing aerogel in comparison with previous works. Using a sol-gel process and ambient pressure drying technique, we could synthesize aerogel in a short time. Throughout the synthesis of aerogels, physical and chemical characterizations have been done. As a result, XRF analysis confirms that the waste contains 76% silicone and aluminum, which makes it a good precursor. Second, the prepared aerogel has a low density of 0.33 g/cm3 in addition to a highly porous network with a porosity of 84.76%. Finally, in order to characterize its thermal performance, different concentrations of aerogel were incorporated into the HDPE matrix. The composite panels were tested using the heat flow meter method. The results showed a decrease in thermal conductivity of 18%, 34%, and 47% by adding 5, 10, and 15% of aerogel, respectively. So, the as-fabricated WB aerogel panels have good thermal performance and great potential for eco-friendly and energy-efficient design for construction purposes.

Graphical Abstract

Highlights

  • New method for recycling demolition and construction waste.

  • Red brick waste as a novel aerogel precursor.

  • The developed HDPE-aerogel panels exhibit both excellent thermal conductivity and low moisture content.

  • Thermal conductivity of HDPE-aerogel composite panels achieved 0.066 W/m.K.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the technical center of plastics and rubber for their assistance with this study by supplying the chemicals required for aerogel manufacturing and allowing us to use their equipment.

Author contributions

OA conceived, designed the presented idea, and carried out the experimental work. Moreover, she has written the whole body of the manuscript and analyzed the data to generate XRD, thermal conductivity, and FTIR figures and graphics. Moreover, interpreting and discussing the results of different analyses in the manuscript. LE contributed to this work by supplying the raw materials and equipments (internal mixers, heated platen presses) necessary for the manufacturing of aerogel panels. Besides providing instruments for aerogel characterization, mainly FTIR and thermal conductivity, MJ and NB, revised the manuscript and provided the necessary corrections and improvements to the work. AZ contributed to this work by providing the data related to the analyses of XRF and XRD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of modeling and simulation of intelligent industrial systems, Higher normal school of technical education, University Hassan II of Casablanca, Mohammedia, Morocco

    Oumaima Ait khouya, Naoual Belouaggadia & Abdellah Zamma

  2. Technical center of plastic and rubber, Casablanca, Morocco

    Oumaima Ait khouya, Latifa EL farissi & Mustapha Jammoukh

  3. Builders Lab, Builders school of engineering, University of Normandy, Epron, France

    Naoual Belouaggadia

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  1. Oumaima Ait khouya
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  2. Latifa EL farissi
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Correspondence to Oumaima Ait khouya.

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Ait khouya, O., EL farissi, L., Belouaggadia, N. et al. Green recycling of red brick waste into aerogel panels for thermal insulation in buildings. J Sol-Gel Sci Technol 110, 62–73 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10971-024-06321-z

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