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Bioconstruction: beyond hempcrete

Today whoever decides to invest in biobased buildings is a pioneer in the construction sector, as it is still a niche market. But latest research about industrial hemp materials have developed products that may be more competitive

One of the common beliefs about bio-construction is that it is only for rich people. According to Mike Lawrence, Professor at the BRE CICM (Centre for Innovative Construction Materials), University of Bath, UK, this is a myth: “If you compare like with like, so if you compare a building made out of conventional materials with the same thermal performance as a building made out of biobased materials such as hemp, the latter is cheaper. Under the EU project called Isobio, we did studies in the UK and in Spain. If you compare the British construction systems, the wall of a hemp building is about 30% cheaper per square metre than the one made out of traditional construction materials. In Spain it is even better, the wall is more expensive there, so a hemp system will be about 55% cheaper than a typical Spanish wall with the same thermal performance.”

The project breakthrough is to replace hempcrete, the mix of hemp and lime normally used to build the bio-houses. The researchers have developed a panel made with hemp shiv, the woody part of the stock of the plant, mixed with a new thermal setting binder, which is also biobased and makes the wall stronger than the one with hemp-lime.

Lawrence says: “The interesting thing is that you can make tongue and groove panels which slot together to produce a surface without any thermal bridges. There’s no way for heat to go round to the other side – it all has to pass through this material which has good thermal conductivity. In particular, the thermal conductivity of hemp-lime, is typically about 0.09-0.1 watts par metre-kelvin, whereas hemp shiv is about 0.06-0.05 watts par metre-kelvin, so a lot better than hemp-lime. Moreover, because it’s so robust you can make it in a factory and deliver it on site without any damage. The material is compressed and heated to 190 degrees and about ten minutes later you get this panel. So a very quick process.”

Another recurring question from beginners in bio-construction is: are these natural materials safe? “If you put a blowtorch onto a building of hemp-lime, after two hours it wouldn’t catch fire. It carbonises, it starts to decay and it smokes a bit, but it won’t catch fire,” Lawrence says. “The material we’ve developed with Isobio doesn’t have lime in it, but we’ve done tests and it passes the current fire regulations. We further improved it by developing a special coating that contains silica, which is a fire-resistant material. This coating also prevents the ingress of water, which means it will become more resistant to decay.”

Lawrence adds: “The building becomes a breathable system from the outside to the inside. Internally you always have a very steady humidity; what I mean is around 50%-55% humidity, which is ideal for the best possible health of the occupants. This because we put in a clay system for the inside, which can absorb and desorb humidity, maintaining a very even temperature. Hemp shiv is also added to this clay plaster, so you get a reduced thermal conductivity and an improved moisture buffering, which is good from the point of view of energy and indoor air quality, and it’s a very healthy environment to live in.”

Finally, “Because it’s all biobased, it can be recycled. With hemp-lime from a building at its end of life, one of the most viable options is to use it as mulch. You put it on top of the ground to stop weeds coming up, save water, and help the plants to grow better. Eventually over a few years it will decay and the materials will become fertilisers for the plants. It’s much more virtuous circle than the use of mineral materials. Although today you can probably reuse the steel, you have to heat it up, melt it and remake more steel which is energy-intensive. Concrete is the big problem. It generally has to be crushed and goes to the landfill. And this is not a very efficient of using the materials.”

By Loredana Pianta

Cover image: Paolo Ronchetti

13 December 2018

Home sweet (hemp) home

December 5 is UN World Soil Day. The building industry has thus been called to account for its role in the massive use of mineral raw materials and environmental pollution. One solution comes from the bio-construction sector which draws on unlimited sources of natural materials such as hemp, which is a recyclable carbon sequestrator. But how comfortable is it to live in a hemp house?

Building with wood, straw, and hemp. Biobased materials are seeing ever more use in the construction sector, which needs to become more sustainable as it is one of the major sources of soil, air and water pollution.

“Forty percent of global raw material is consumed by the building industry. Fifty percent of CO₂ emissions into the atmosphere come from the construction sector,” reports Italian bio-construction expert Paolo Ronchetti. Moreover, “Traditional building and insulation materials – of mineral or synthetic origin – are rarely recyclable. At the end of their life they are disposed of in landfills. Therefore, besides having an important environmental impact for their production, they have an equivalent environmental impact for their disposal.”

Biodegradable and from unlimited sources. Instead of exploiting the earth’s crust, and using a process that consumes energy and pollute, the bioconstruction sector can get its materials from the field. Hemp is one of the best examples; it can be grown in crop rotation and improves the quality of the soil. The plant is also a “carbon sequestrator”: it grows very quickly and acts as a carbon store, absorbing atmospheric CO₂ for as long as it continues to exist.

Ronchetti adds: “You should consider that one cubic metre of a brick made from hempcrete – a hemp and lime biocomposite – instead of emitting C0₂, and polluting, it captures 20 kg of CO₂ from the atmosphere. A cubic metre of low-density hempcrete biocomposite, which is sprayed to insulate roofs or subfloors, can remove 60 kg of CO₂ from the atmosphere. So you can imagine – with the volumes and the numbers in the construction industry – how much this virtuous model of building with hemp and lime can fight climate change.”

To note, in the past, industrial hemp was banned in many countries because it was associated with illegal marijuana, from which it differs as the psychoactive compound ‘THC’ is present in proportions of below 0.2%. A thriving industry was consequently stopped. Now hemp farming is flourishing again.

This material also has other advantages. It allows builders to make high-performance envelopes and offers more comfortable, healthy and energy-efficient houses. Furthermore, the traditional building industry has increasingly used synthetic and chemical products that can be toxic and hazardous to human health. Tough low allergen design using natural materials is becoming a new trend.

Northern Italy, Chiari, near Brescia. “In the Po Valley summers are terribly hot and humid. Winters are cold and damp. Humidity rules here!’’ says Sara Bordiga. His husband, Mauro Cogi, longed for an eco-friendly home, and started studying all the available possibilities on the market. Finally, he opted for hemp and in 2015, Mauro and Sara moved into their new biobased house with their child.

“My husband’s choice really surprised me. I had never heard about hemp houses!” says Sara.

Mauro, an engineer, personally followed all the building phases. “The hemp technology works very well. I wrapped the whole structure in this monobloc hemp envelope, thus avoiding thermal bridges.” It’s monobloc because they didn’t use bricks, the hempcrete was sprayed directly onto the structural walls.

As this natural material is porous, it allows the building to “breathe”, avoiding any stagnant humidity. It also keeps a consistent temperature, thus cutting heating and cooling costs.

“Unlike what happens in homes with traditional polystyrene cladding, which doesn’t let moisture out, hemp allows good air exchange. This leads to very dry walls and high environmental comfort,” explains Mauro. “In this house, whose heating and cooling systems are only electric, the maximum power required is 1.8 kW, which is little more than a hair dryer. And with this 1.8 kW I can cool or heat 180 square metres.”

“Zero mould. Zero moisture,” confirms Sara. “And we’re doing well! There is a good level of comfort, we live well in terms of air and well-being.”

Hemp mixed with lime is the usual solution to insulate this kind of building. But European researchers, working on the project called Isobio, went further and developed a lighter but more rigid panel, with improved thermal conductivity. Thanks to innovative biobased binders, whose formula is still a secret, there’s no need for lime. This solution has breakthrough potential in the building sector.

Mike Lawrence, professor at BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials, University of Bath, UK, explains: “This material is the major innovation. It is a mixture of the hemp shiv – the woody part of the hemp stock – and it’s been mixed with the thermal setting binder which is also biobased, to make something which is rigid but strong… Much much stronger than you will get with hemp lime, which is much more brittle material. And it’s a lower density than hemp lime, and it’s much more flexible in the possibilities.’’

“The other innovation is a low density, a low thermal conductivity render, and that’s made up with also hemp shiv but it’s very fine. And this is mixed with lime. But because it’s so fine and because of the formulation of the lime, you end up with a render which is very high performance, very low thermal conductivity, much much better than a normal lime render. It’s laid in two layers, it’s got a reinforcement, it’s a sort of plastic grid which is put in between the two layers just to stop it cracking. And on the top – when you put these layers on – you put a standard lime plaster, a lime render which provides the resistance, the full resistance to the weather. Because hemp has the ability to absorb and desorb humidity, on the outside when it’s raining you don’t want that, so you put this out of surface, which will stop the water coming in,” he adds.

“Between the panels we put a fibre insulation. This insulation is made up primarily of recycled cotton, and it’s also got fibres from flax and from hemp,’’ Lawrence concludes.

The researchers are testing these and other innovations in different climates, in Spain and in the UK. They installed their composite panels in two demonstration buildings in Seville and in Wroughton, and now they are monitoring applied solutions. According to their results, they can achieve 20% better insulation performance than conventional materials, 50% less embodied energy and CO₂ emissions, 15% reduction in total costs.

Oliver Style, energy consultant and researcher for Isobio says: ‘’I think that the real innovation is bringing together biobased materials, a lot of which have been used in traditional constructions for centuries, and applying modern solutions to make them fire-resistant, water resistant, to make them bind well and combining all of these different materials in a prefabricated wall system, which can be industrialised. I think up to now a lot of biobased construction has been very small scale, it’s been in the field of people who are very committed to biobased buildings, but it’s quite small scale, quite bespoke. So what we’re trying to do is create scalable solutions that can be built at industrial scale and which can make all of the requirements of the marketplace regarding thermal performance, fire performance, resistant to different weather conditions.’’

The composite panels should enter the market by the end of the decade. These biobased materials are expected to become ever more competitive in the next years, as the European Union requires all new buildings to be “nearly zero-energy”, which means very high energy performance, by the end of 2020.

By Loredana Pianta

27 November 2018

Journalists can download the video teaser and the BROLL [11’, original sound] in HD quality and scripts, free of rights and charge, here: mediacenter.youris.com

Hydrophobic hemp shiv aggregates using a facile one-step silica based coating for the building industry

Chemical composition and the geometric structure of a surface of a material are the two main attributes that govern the wettability characteristics of any material.

In pursuit for better and economical building materials, researchers have unearthed hemp shiv: the woody core of the hemp plant. Hemp shiv has been seen to possess exemplary attributes (such as excellent thermal insulation, hygroscopicity, mechanic-ability, biodegradability and good acoustic absorbance) that approve its utilization in the fabrication of light weight composites. Contra wise, not only does hemp shiv possess a higher water absorption rate due to its highly porous structure, but also has cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin which make it incompatible with hydrophobic thermoset/thermoplastic polymers. Excess moisture conditions can lead to degradation and decay of hemp based composites. Consequently, this can be resolved by converting cellulose-based hydrophilic materials to hydrophobic via chemical modification.

Several techniques have already been established, however, none is applicable for the treatment of hemp shiv. Fortunately, sol-gel technology has shown good results when used to deposit silica-based water repellant coatings on bio-based materials. Therefore, there is need to investigate its capability to efficiently coat hemp shiv.

To this note, a team of researchers, Atif Hussain (PhD Student), Dr Juliana Calabria-Holley, Dr Yunhong Jiang and Dr. Mike Lawrence at the BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials- Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at University of Bath in the UK in collaboration with Canadian researchers at University of Laval, Dr Diane Schorr and Professor Pierre Blanchet incorporated sol-gel technology for the first time in the treatment of hemp shiv in order to develop a superior bio-based aggregate for sustainable high performance thermal insulation building composites. Additionally, they investigated the influence of catalysts, solvent dilution and hexadecyltrimethoxysilane (HDTMS) loading in the silica sols on the hydrophobicity of hemp shiv surface. Their work is currently published in the research journal, Applied Surface Science.

Their research method commenced with the preparation of the hydrophobic coatings. Next, the water contact angle of the uncoated hemp shiv samples was determined. Using 3D optical profilometer, the researchers obtained the topography and surface roughness of the samples. They then proceeded to analyze the surface elemental and chemical composition of the samples. Lastly, they characterized the surface morphology of the specimens using scanning electron microscopy.

The authors observed that the hydrophobicity of sol-gel coated hemp shiv increased significantly when using acid catalyzed sols which provided water contact angles of up to 118° at 1% HDTMS loading. The researches also noted that the ethanol diluted sol-gel coatings enhanced the surface roughness of the hemp shiv by 36% as observed under 3D optical profilometer. Finally, the X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy results revealed that the surface chemical composition of the hemp shiv was altered by the sol-gel coating, blocking the hydroxyl sites responsible for hydrophilicity.

Atif Hussain and colleagues study presented a facile single step dip-coating process that was successfully applied to form a hydrophobic surface onto an extremely hydrophilic bio-based aggregate. Generally, the hydrophobic properties were achieved through a combination of topological alteration and chemical modification of the hemp shiv by the modified silica-based sol-gel coatings. Altogether, coatings with low HDTMS precursor loading would be of interest to the bio-based building industry due to its hygroscopic properties, long shelf life, economical and lower environmental impact.

Full characterization of hemp shiv physical parameters

Researchers from the University of Bath have published a new paper that, for the first time, fully characterizes the intrinsic physical parameters of hemp shiv.

Though bio-based insulation materials, such as hemp, flax and wheat straw offer a number of benefits in comparison with more established mineral and oil-based alternatives, the characterisation of the properties of bio-based building materials is at an early stage.

Hemp shiv is, by far, the most commonly used bio-aggregate in the construction industry and the information provided in the paper will be of great use to researchers and practitioners alike.

“Cell wall microstructure, pore size distribution and absolute density of hemp shiv” has been published by Royal Society Open Science and is now available to read and download at this link.

The many faces of hemp

The ecological properties of hemp makes it one of the types of insulation used in construction with the lowest carbon emissions footprint

A relatively recent interest in hemp as a building material responds to a global trend that encourages the development of bio-based products and the reduction of carbon emissions. But its use dates back to many centuries ago.

In China, in 200 BCE, hemp was mixed with lime and tung oil, and used as caulk for junk ships, classic ancient Chinese sailing vessels. It is no surprise these hemp vessels, which sailed by the early Middle Ages, are still in wide use. The permeability of the hemp material that controls moisture similarly to existing wooden elements, makes it ideal for the shipping industry.

In France, we can find another example of its early use in construction in the 6th century. Hemp mortar was discovered in Merovingian bridges where the crop was used to reinforce abutments. The first construction using hempcrete (hemp and lime composite) wrapped around a timber frame was built in 1989 in the same country.

Nowadays, France is Europe’s biggest producer of industrial hemp, and first in the world in hemp-seed production accounting for 59 percent of the global total.

The plant can be grown locally and harvested with minimum input in a matter of months. French Cavac Biomatériaux cultivates hemp and flax. The plantations are located close to its manufacturing site, reducing the company’s carbon footprint. The industrial production of hemp, flax fibres, and shiv, undergo a process of defibering and burling after which they are packed and delivered to the site. “We are a complete hemp chain from the field to the site,” says Valentin Colson, Service R&D of Cavac, which is also member of the European project ISOBIO focusing on eco-materials for low-carbon construction.

The company produces bio-based flexible and rigid insulation panels for the construction industry. “One important point is that the panel is vapour permeable. It is hydrophobic, which means that water has difficulty to penetrate the panel,” explains Colson, offers an excellent long-term mechanical stability, and can also be used to seal and improve the air tightness of the building.

Even though the hemp used in construction is fire resistant, researchers continue to look for better eco-friendly alternatives. “We are working on the fire-proofing of the new panel and try to find an eco-friendly solution to fireproof it,” says Colson.

In the UK, it was illegal to grow hemp between 1929 and 1993, because the plant belongs to the cannabis family. Other places such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the US banned the cultivation of hemp for nearly 70 years due to its connection with marijuana. However, only 0.3 percent of THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), the principal psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, is present in the strain of plant grown for hemcrete. All the bans are lifted now.

In the US, hempcrete imported from Europe was used for the first time in 2000 in the exterior of a home built for spiritual leader and Sioux elder Ernest Afraid of the Bear on the Pine Ridge Reservation in an attempt to offer the Sioux a return to a self-sustainable and independent life in balance with Mother Earth. However, the construction of a permitted hemp home did not begin until 2010.

In that year, former Asheville mayor Russ Martin and his wife Karon Korp built the first permitted hemp home in Asheville, North Carolina. Back then, they consulted with environmental designer Anthony Brenner, who brought the idea of building with hemp to the couple who was looking for a sustainable, energy-efficient home. After the success with Martin-Korp’s hemp house, Brenner was consulted on many other hemp homes.

Hempcrete panels are used as insulating infill of walls, roof, and under-floor offering great thermal and acoustic performance. Concerns in long-term performance of the plant in construction such as biological degradation, infestation, moisture, structural degradation, or fire “are solved with the presence of hydrated lime,” says Brenner. Among the many benefits of building with hemp, he highlights “carbon-negative, non-toxic, fire-resistant, and mold-resistant.” It provides natural insulation, and it makes for a healthy and safe building site. When a building is demolished, the hempcrete can be recycled and reused in a new building.

In the US, “many states are passing legislation to grow hemp now, which will make it more cost effective. The cost was the biggest hurdle,” says Brenner. This was because before the Agricultural Act signed by former US President Barack Obama in 2014 all the hemp was imported from Europe, mostly from France and the UK.

By Susan Fourtané

Photo credits: Esteban Lopez

14 December 2017

Living in a hemp house

Hemp, a multi-purpose crop that delivers fibres, shivs, seeds, and pharmaceuticals is currently used in insulation materials and bio-composites for a more sustainable construction industry. Russ Martin and his wife Karon Korp tell their story as owners of the first hemp house in the US

Hemp is getting more attention for its multiple uses in sustainable building. In the US, former Asheville mayor Russ Martin and his wife Karon Korp, built the first hemp house in 2010 using crop imported from the UK. They were inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, an American architect and interior designer who believed in designing structures that are in harmony with humanity and its environment. Wright called this philosophy “organic architecture.”

Karon Korp and Russ Martin Photo source: Karon Korp — Karon Korp and Russ Martin
Photo source: Karon Korp

Since legislation passed in 2014, hemp homes can be homegrown in the US. However, the industrial cultivation of this plant is still in its infancy. There were only 4,000 hectares planted in 2016 in contrast to 33,000 hectares of industrial hemp grown in Europe in the same year.

“Hemp is a great option and a sustainable product that should be more widely accepted and used,” says Karon Korp, who together with her husband, lived for six years in their hemp house in North Carolina. “Designer Anthony Brenner worked with us to help create the home and its features, and brought the idea of building with hemp to us.” youris.com asked Korp to share some more details from their life in the hemp house.

What was your main motivation for building a hemp house?
We wanted to do something that had not been done before, in a healthy, green way that was more sustainable for our planet.

Do you still live there?
We sold the home last year, the first of its kind in America. Though the space was beautiful and we enjoyed living there very much, it was at 3,500 feet (around 1,060 metres) elevation, almost the top of the mountain. Our lifestyle and work commitments found us in town most days and we decided to simplify our lives a bit by moving to a more convenient neighbourhood.

How was living in the hemp house in the mountains like?
It was a sanctuary almost on top of the mountain, views of mountains and nature all around, filled with light in every room, ample wildlife – lots of black bears!

The first hemp house built from hempcrete in the U.S., belonged to Russ Martin and Karon Korp. It was their hemp home from 2010 to 2016. Photo source: Anthony Brenner — The first hemp house built from hempcrete in the U.S., belonged to Russ Martin and Karon Korp. It was their hemp home from 2010 to 2016.
Photo source: Anthony Brenner

Can you comment on how the insulation and air-purifying properties were when you lived there? How do they compare to your previous houses?
The home is 3,000 square feet (around 279 square metres), and the insulating factor of the hemp proved quite effective, even at the higher elevation where weather could be colder and more severe than lower elevations. Our electric bill was routinely below average for homes of similar size. As for the air-purifying properties of the home, I would say we were less prone to allergies while living there for six years.

Could you tell us more about other eco-friendly materials that were used in the house?
We had walls made out of a product from recycled paper. They are structurally more sound than traditionally framed walls, and on the exterior they are covered with a magnesium oxide board finish. We used recycled building materials throughout the home: flooring, windows, vanities. We used natural finishes, and NO VOC (volatile organic compounds) stains, and paint. The hemp was fire retarding.

What about the costs of living in a hemp house?
The cost of our house average monthly energy bill was $100 (around €85) for a 3,000 square feet (around 279 square metres) home. Moreover, we saved 25 percent on our homeowner’s insurance after moving into the hemp house.

Can you also share the price of the house when you sold it?
The house sold for $685,000 (around €584,000) in May 2017.
Do you think hemp could be the preferred material in the future of the construction industry?
While I don’t think it will ever completely replace traditional methods and materials, industrial hemp could revolutionise the building industry, and provide a new agricultural product that would support farmers and rebuild their industry.

By Susan Fourtané

14 December 2017

Rigid Insulation Panel from Hemp

Cavac Biomatériaux is a subsidiary of the French Agricultural Cooperative Cavac, and specialises in the production of biobased insulation products for the building market. Within the ISOBIO project they have developed a new product: a rigid insulation panel made of hemp.

The panel is composed of a commercial hemp shiv grade bonded using a specially formulated thermosetting bio-based binder, developed in collaboration with UR1. The panel manufacturing process has been validated on existing industrial tools and panel prototypes have been installed at ISOBIO demonstrators.

Functions

The rigid panel can be used for internal or external insulation, or as a substrate for renders or plasters. A tongue and groove system has been developed for easy installation and to prevent thermal bridging.

The insulating panel offers a low thermal conductivity and embodied energy while maximising the moisture buffering value and mechanical properties. Research on additives showed that improved water repellence and fire performances can be obtained.

Impact

This product brings a new valorisation to hemp shiv aggregates (a byproduct of the hemp transformation). The biobased binder offers an eco-friendly and harmless alternative to formaldehyde and isocyanate adhesives.

The compatibility with dry manufacturing processes also significantly reduces the embodied energy when compared to existing wet processes.

Homes storing CO2, just like trees

Houses built with bio-based materials, such as timber, straw and hemp, act as CO₂banks. Experts explain how citizens can become custodians of atmospheric carbon dioxide and thus help reduce air pollution

Domestic efforts play an important role in curbing global warming. Besides producing and using renewables, homes can also act as banks that store CO₂. This innovative building model exploits bio-based materials, such as timber, straw and hemp, which act as “carbon sequestrators.”

Carbon is banked through photosynthesis made by plants during their lifetime. “Photosynthesis is the means with which plants absorb atmospheric CO₂ molecules, and split them into their component atoms. The carbon atom is retained making complex organic sugars that are the building blocks of the cellulose, hemi-cellulose and lignin found in plant cell walls. The oxygen atoms are released back into atmosphere as a by-product. Therefore, photosynthesis converts atmospheric CO₂ into carbon-based materials that we can use to build and insulate our houses”, says Finlay White, expert in low energy “passive” buildings.

When plants die, the ground absorbs the stored carbon dioxide, which then finds its way back into the environment. However, if we use bio-based materials in construction, the CO₂ remains “imprisoned” in the buildings made.

But how much carbon dioxide can be stored in a carbon sequestration house? White explains that “depending on the extent of the renewable materials used, the gross amount of CO₂ equivalent stored could be as much as 55 tonnes for a typical 80m² house. Such dwellings would typically use timber framing for the superstructure and for the internal walls and floor, straw bale insulation in the roof, timber for the cladding and finishes, and other bio-based materials for use elsewhere.”

“The gross amount is the actual CO₂ absorbed by the bio-based materials used in the building. The net amount will need to take account of the energy used and subsequent CO₂ emissions associated with dealing with the forests and crops, and turning the materials into useful building products and delivering them to site. This is known as embodied carbon”, he adds.

“Therefore the calculation for a bio-based house will be the gross CO₂captured minus the CO₂ emissions embodied in making the house. A typical 80m²bio-based house with a gross CO₂ capture of 55 tonnes might well mean a net amount of 33.6 tonnes.”

White works for the Bristol-based green technology firm Modcell, which contributed to the construction of what they claim to be the world’s first commercially available houses built using straw (more info in this BBC report).

They are also collaborating with the European project Isobio, which is developing “new products that include compressed straw board that can replace plasterboard, cereal fibres combined with bio polymers to make components for door cores etc.”, says White, “Once a designer becomes aware of the use of bio-based materials, the potential for their use expands rapidly.”

Carbon sequestration houses still remain a niche market in Europe.

Callum Hill, senior visiting research fellow at the University of Bath, another Isobio expert in the field, points out that “the building industry tends to be very conservative in its approach and prefers to use what it is familiar with. Bio-derived materials are often perceived as being perishable, flammable and short-lived. These perceptions are not supported by facts”. Compressed straw bales used for building envelopes, for example, are not flammable because they contain less oxygen.

Hill thinks that governments should recognise this alternative storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide and “provide a financial benefit for custodians of it. “It is a way of storing atmospheric carbon dioxide that can be readily achieved and without financial penalty (unlike carbon capture and storage)”, he says, “This is something that can be done to the benefit of society and the environment. Anthropogenic carbon emissions are undoubtedly changing the climate and these will have huge financial implications”.

By Luigi Serenelli

17 November 2016

ISOBIO achievements in treating hemp shivs

ISOBIO research is achieving promising results in treating hemp shivs. The latest development by the innovation partner TWI lead to impressive results in terms of water repellence (up to 130° of water contact angle) and of hydrophobic properties (water contact angle, above 90° and maintaind for over 20 minutes).

These achievements are promisingly converging towards the main objective of developing bio-based materials with high insulating properties, low embodied energy, low embodied carbon and hygrothermally efficient.