Construction: the project to create innovative panels with waste products is underway

Innovative building panels made with a waste product from the chemical industry. This is what the INNCED project proposes, which sees ENEA, the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, collaborating with Fluorsid SpA, a world leader in the production and sale of fluorine-based chemicals.

The project, which counts on a total funding of 180 thousand euros, of which a quarter from the ENEA Proof of Concept 2020 program, will last one year and will employ a by-product of the Fluorsid industrial production cycle, consisting of 98%, in the construction of the panels. from anhydrous gypsum (CaSO4). The team of ENEA researchers from two different departments, “Energy Technologies and Renewable Sources” and “Sustainability of production and territorial systems”, will study the possibility of creating an innovative panel prototype for the construction sector, according to circular economy models and characterized by resistance to fire and mechanical stress, high levels of thermal and acoustic insulation and high lightness.

“These last characteristics, which we will try to achieve, will be tested by applying the aeration method of the already patented mortar, with international patent, in our laboratory and based on the combined action of brewer’s yeast and hydrogen peroxide, from whose reaction the formation of oxygen bubbles and the consequent leavening of the composite ”, explains Piero De Fazio, head of the Instruments Section for Energy Applications at ENEA.

The products currently on the market are plasterboard panels and / or expanded clay concrete blocks, light, resistant and with which it is possible to quickly and dryly build resistant walls. “The aim of our research is to create prototypes of synthetic anhydrite panels with better mechanical performance than those of current, light and low density products. This is also achieved by collaborating with a leading company in the sector at an international level and thus making the experience and tools of applied research available to the country’s production system “, concludes De Fazio.