Novel circular economy business model of high-added value products for energy efficiency: from C&DW to aerogels

Novel circular economy business model of high-added value products for energy efficiency: from C&DW to aerogels

Ruiz-González, F.
Nadargi, D.
Philippe, K.
Goiti, E.
Ocejo, M.
Vegas, I.

2017-06-21

Since the Industrial Revolution, humanity’s use of natural resources has been basically the same: TAKE, MAKE and THROW AWAY; which consequently led to the indispensable problems of waste materials. Around 461 million tons of Construction & Demolition Waste (C&DW), excluding excavation materials, are yearly generated in EU28. This undoubtedly gives a call to novel closed-loop circular business models which reshape the Eco-system in a way the waste is 'designed out'. Here, we present a novel closed-loop circular economy model of a high-performance building insulation material from silica containing C&DW materials to silica aerogels with λ≈0.015 W/mK. In the present model, the benefit comes with the use of massive construction waste to a silica precursor and thereby aerogel production guaranteeing at least 40% product cost reduction and 40% reduction in energy consumption in real construction environment.

C&DW
aerogel
circular economy
energy efficiency
thermal insulation

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:5db38775-4228-40b6-991d-9d00fbb35649

Conference proceedings

conference paper

(c) 2017 The Author(s)