Sustainable Materials from Textile Waste

This thesis shows an experimental investigation carried out on different innovative materials based on pre-consumer textile waste. The research was developed at Polytechnic University of Bari (Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture) in collaboration with the Universitat Politècnica de València (Departamento de Ingeniería Textil y Papelera) and with the support of the private clothing manufacturing company Gordon Confezioni s.r.l. (Bari, Italy). Three groups of non-woven materials were prepared in laboratory using three different binders (i.e. bi-component fibers, chitosan and gum Arabic) and following two different manufacturing processes (chemically gluing and thermally bonding techniques). All materials were tested from several perspectives and their hygrothermal, acoustic and fire resistance behaviour was discussed and correlated with the physical parameters and the non-acoustic properties of the tested materials. Furthermore, the statistical inference was used as method of comparison, generalizing the information contained in laboratory samples. The achieved scientific results allow to state that the proposed materials may represent a valid alternative for building applications, opening a new research area. After choosing the best performing mixture, the internal atrium of the Architecture’s Building of the Polytechnic University of Bari was selected as case study in order to simulate the effect of different arrangements of the selected material in form of panels. CATT-Acoustic® software and DesignBuilder® software were used to test respectively the acoustic and thermal behaviour of the interested material. Results showed negligible effects on the thermal comfort, but important improvement of the acoustic comfort of the spaces interested by the treatment. Thus, it could be concluded that the conversion of textile residues into secondary raw materials for building components could represent a strategic solution to actualize important circularity objectives, reducing the environmental impacts of the building industry and developing a sustainable management of the textile wastes. The thesis also includes a part designated to the industrial upscaling of the proposed materials, made possible thanks to the support of the textile machinery manufacturer Cormatex srl (Prato, Italy).