Eco-efficient false ceiling plates made from plaster with wood and plastic residues

Abstract

Large amounts of different types of waste are generated each day in the world. Most of them do not receive proper management at the end of its useful life. In that sense, and trying to apply eco-efficiency criteria, the construction sector has recently been working on the design of new building materials that incorporate some types of residues. Those new construction materials improve some of the properties given by traditional options, such as thermal conductivity or lightness. However, many types of research in which new building products are generated do not exist. Subsequently, this paper aims at generating new gypsum plaster false ceiling plates by incorporating two different types of residues: wood waste from the demolition of traditional wooden slabs and polycarbonate (plastic) waste from crushed rejected CDs and DVDs. The flexural strength of the developed plates is tested using the procedure described by UNE-EN 14246. Furthermore, the thermal conductivity of the new pieces is obtained following the method defined by ASTM D5930-09. The results show that for all the scenarios under study when wood and plastic waste is added to the plates, the lightness and the thermal conductivity of the pieces improved. In addition, in some scenarios, the incorporation of polycarbonate waste is linked to an improvement in the mechanical behaviour of the pieces compared to the reference plate. On the other hand, when wood waste is added to the mixtures, the flexural behaviour of the plates decreases, but always achieving the minimum requirements made by the standards. Finally, it must be said that adding waste to the plasters, the amount of gypsum powder used to generate the plates decreases considerably, which represents a significant improvement in the eco-efficiency of new products.